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THE 



AFFIDAVIT OF ANDREW JACKSON, 



TAKEX BY THE DEFENDANTS 



IN THE SUIT OF ROBERT MAYO vs. BLAIR & RIVES 



FOR A LIBEL: 



A N A L Y S l<: D AND REFUTED, 



BY ROBERT MAYO, M. D. 

AUTUOn OF SKETCHES OF F.ICHT YEARS IN WASHINOTOy, &C. &.C. 



WASHINGTON CITY, Ds C. 

PRINTED F U THE T L A I N T I F F. 

1840. 



v. 



t 



TO THE PUBLIC. 



More than iiiiip yfars ago (that is, early in December, 1830) I addressed to General 
Jackson, tlicn President of the T^nitcd States, a letter, (see Appendix A,) "to be need in 
any way he might deem projjer," giving him a detailed statement of General Houston's 
plans of organizing an expedition against the Mexican province of Texas, accompanied 
with a copy of his scheme of secret cryptographical correspondence, and referring to wit- 
nesses. 

In the fall of 183G, that orig;in;il letter and cipher weie handed to me nv thi; T'uksi- 
iiext's messf.moeu, in the routine of sundry other documents of mine returned to me 
through the same messenger, in jiursuance, as I had every reason to suppose, of a stuiid- 
ing rer/itest from me to Major Doneison, the private secretary of the President, to have all 
my communications, letters, &c., hunted up* and returned to me, as soon as convenient, 
after all contemplated action had ujion them — excepting any that might be retained by the 
President, of course. 

Such was the purport of my request, which was made in consequence of the inability 
of the private secretary to lay his hands upon such documents, in frequent instances, when 
called tor by me in person ; and, as an evidence that it was so understood by Major Don- 
eison, I did receive at my lodgln'^s many returns of documents in that way by the hands 
of the same me-ssenger, which I now have in my possession, but are too voluminous to ex- 
hibit here, though they shall make their appearance in another publication. 

There was also a request and a promise to the same effect in behalf of a friend, tlien in 
Virginia, for the return of his documents, whose letters to me will not only establish the 
fa,ct, but show that more than twelve month.s elapsed before his papers were found ; and I 
believe it was the jiractice of CJencral Jackson, or his private secretary, to return all com- 
munications with the evidences of action endorsed upon them, or accompanying them, 
when there was no reason assigned for withholding them ; and, more particularly about 
the close of his administration, I have reason to believe this practice was very general, and 
that probably the letter returned to Mr. Van Ijuren about that time, wherein the writer 
had urged on the President his objections to the a])i)ointment of Samuel Swartwout as col- 
lector of the customs at New York, is an eminent instance. The Kichmond Enquirer is 
the organ through which the public was informed of the restoration of that letter : perhaps 



♦ This function of hunting «p dncumenls and iPUers called fur was certainly aometimes intrusted lo the 
President's messencer, as I occasionally undprslnad from Maj^vr Doneison hini.sV'lf, when he would promise 
me to have su -h as he could not readily lay hands on f^ir me searched for by the messcncer and sent to me. 
And I believe many other persons are acquainted with the fart, or at least are of the inipr ssion, that the 
President's messenffer was the principal ronserralor of his tiles. [Such is the case, in .snme decree, with 
messeneers in several of the Departments.] Whether he discharced that funrtion failhtidly, fell short of, or 
exceeded his duty, the President and his private secretary ought to be the best jiidees. Whenever he brought 
a package to ine, 1 ciuestioned nm the authority liy which he bnuieht ii ; and as they were in every instarire 
my owii, accompanied only with the President's anion upon them, whether satisfactory or not to my 
views and wishes, I considered the matter, so far, as final, and was then left to my discretion and choice 
what use I should aeain make of them ; and, as an evidence of this, in some instances I would recommit the 
same document to the President, with a request to reconsider his decision : which fact can be substantiated 
al a proper time by the documents themselves. I will barely make the suecesiion here, that Cien< ral Jack- 
son, except for the malienant lemperament of his mind, wiaild in all probability have supposed iliat Major 
Doneison, in reiurnine me my papers, inadvertently sent the copy also of his letter to Fulion. filed as it was 
in the same packaire with my letter on Houston's conspiracy as evidence of his action upnn it : or, indeed, 
if it were evidence of salisfaciory action, he never woulrl have considered it worth a rush to make a clamor 
about its publication, much less have made a labored arcumenl of falsehiKids to eive color to a most impMb- 
able supposition ; which seems rather to suppose that he stands self-condemneil astoihe hyrocritical sub 
lerfuge of the letter to Fulton, and is himselfthe author of the libel on me, as a revenue for the publication 
of thai letter, with a commentary unmasking the duplicity of its object. 



the editor of that paper knows sonictlilng more of the practice and policy of rclttrnhig or 
retainintr communications. In addition to these instances, and the mass of such docu- 
ments so returned to me and now in my possession, it is probable I shall hereafter be en- 
abled to cite many others, to the same effect, as demonstrating the practice. 

The envelope of this original letter, so returned to me, bore this endorsation by the Pres- 
ident viz: "Dr. Mayo — on the conteinplated invasion of Texas — private and confidential* — 
a letter to be written (confidential) to the Secretary of the T. of Arkansas, with copy fif 
confidential letter to Wm. Fulton, Esq., Secretarj' of the T. of Florida.^' Within that 
envelope was my original letter and the cipher above mentioned, with a single other doc- 
ument onbj, purporting to be a copy of a letter to Mr. Fulton, dated the 10th December, 
18-30, showing the action of the President upon my aforesaid letter; which copy to Ful- 
ton bore this endorsement, viz: "(Copy) confidential — Wm. Fulton, Sec. of the T. of 
Florida — private and confidential;" and, on the inside, this copy is headed " stiuctly 
cqxfidextial". From these confused endorsements on these two documents, (that is, 
on the general envelope, and on the copy of the letter to Fulton,) it was, to my mind, a 
matter of doubt whether any such letter had been sent to the Secretary of Florida, as there 
was no such Secretary' of Florida there named; and no such letter has, in fact, ever been 
since alleged to have been sent to the Secretary of Florida : and, on the same account, it 
was equally worthy of doubt whether one had ever been sent to the Secretary of Arkansas, 
whose address was not clearly designated ; or, had such letters been sent, they were ])rob- 
ably falsely' directed — otherwise, these endorsements would have been correctly made at 
^rst, or have been corrected afterwards. It appeared to ine, therefore, upon examining 
this package, not onlij that it presented a singular confusion, but that it was possibly handed 
to me to show the action, whether sham or real, that had been taken upon it; there being 
probably no reason longer to keep it secret, as most of the facts had now become history, 
and upon which there might be no objection to tiic injunction of secrecy being removed; 
or, on the other hand, it seemed quite as probable that the fact of the copy of the letter 
to Fulton being in the package was inadvertently overlooked. But, under all the cir- 
cumstances, as the case presented itself to my mind, I concluded that, by whatever mo- 
tives this package was handed to me as the comniunicutor of its principal contents to 
the President, they were perfectly immaterial to the coarse I deemed it proper for me to 
pursue in regard to it, since (perceiving the scries of covert falsehoods reciprocally embra- 
ced in, and deducible from, both this copy to Fulton and the volume of diplomatic corres- 
pondence between the President of the United States and the Mexican minister on the 
same subject) I held myself bound, by a high paramount obligation to my country and to 
the world, to expose the whole matter, and at the same time to vindicate myself against 
the discredit indirectly thrown upon my statement of Houston's designs by the allegations 
of General Jackson in his letter to Fulton, in which he says: "I am induced to bnieve, 
and hope, that the information I have received is erroneous ; that xo rjovcynents have 
been made, nor have any facts been cstahlishid, which would justify the adoption of of- 
ficial proceedings against indiv' duals implicated.'' I, therefore, unhesitatingly made it 
public in various ways, and cxhil)ited a fac-simile of the said letter in my recent publica- 
tion of "Eight Years in Washington" — which exposure, I now solemnly aver, I would 
have made had it been the last act of mi/ life ! 

In consequence of some or all of these modes of publication, Messrs. Blair &. Rives, in 
several issues of the Globe riewspaper, charged me, by various modes of expression, with 
having purloined the sard copy of General Jackson's letter to Mr. Fulton ; for which out- 
rage I instituted a suit against them, in the circuit court of the District of Columbia, for 
libel. Preparatory to the trial of this suit at the next spring term of the court, the defend- 
ants have caused General Jackson's avfipavit to be taken in justification of their charge. 
Upon being informed of the existence of that affidavit on record in the clerk's offic.-, at the 
present session of tiie court I immediately ordered a copy, and, after perusing its extraor- 
dinary contents, resolved that I would not submit to the foul calunuiy cast upon me a mo- 
ment longer than could possibly be avoided, but that I would lay the slanderous document 
immediately before the public in this form, with a brief analysis and refutation of it, lest any 
man, knowing of its existence, should pass from this stage of being before f should otherwise 
have it in my power to correct any supposition or belief that it was possible those imputa- 



* The tharactor of " priviite and confiJenii.ir' wr.s assumed for this letter by General Jackson himsplf, 
and for motives host known to himself, without inj request or knowledge, but exprpssly " to be used in any 
way he inijrhl deem proper." 



tions were true; and also that General Jackson, especially, &houlJ have the earliest op- 
portunity of seeing his maHsxnnnt falsehoods laid hare to the world .' 

I have ample reason to helievc tiiat there exists an ahundantc of facts in the possession 
of many of the most respcctahlc citizens of this country, which, if they do not prove that 
tienerai Jackson was habitually addicted to the perversion of truth, will at least prove that 
he is unceremonious in the perpetration of falsehood when he thinks it would serve his 
purposes of ambition or malice better than the truth. And I now make a solemn appeal 
to all such persons, as an act of justice to the public in general, and to the cause of truth, 
to furnish mo with such facts as they may have in their possession, or can refer mc to, be- 
tween this time and the trial of the suit. 

The following is the affidavit in answer to six interrogatories, of which my business 
will be, for the most part, with the deponent's answer to the sixth. In attempting to show 
how I might have purloined the copy of his letter to Fulton, the deponent actually shows, 
upon every rational principle and practice in ofiicial or social intercourse, how it was 
morally /;H;jofS(Wc that I could have done the df-ed; and in xtrgini:, against reason and 
fact, his made up recital and forced inference, he shows himself to be a prejudiced wit- 
ness, and a partial p\uris\y of the defendants, asivill prticntbj he dcmondrutcd to the 
satit<factio7i of every intelligent and imfautial person. 

INTERROGATORIES. 

f nst interrogalonj.—DM vou ever write and send to Win. Fulton, Secretary of the Tefritcry of Arkansas, 
a letter of which the followine is a copy"! [See Appendix B, for the letter alluded to.] 
iVeroiul inleno^ulori/.— When did you write such a leiter] 

Tliird iiilerrogalori/.—lM Gov. Fulton acknowledKe the receipt of such a letter? 

Fourth ii'terrogato'ry.— Did you lake a copy of the letter when you wrote it, and what did you do with if? 
Fifl?i inlerrog<itonj.—D\A you ever give or 'deliver a copy of the letter you wrote Governor Fulton to ]\Ir. 
Eoliert Mavo! , ., , 

Sixth iiilerrosalort/.—Wix^t eventually became of the copy? and, if you please, state whatever else you 
may know respecting the above letter, and how it came into the possession of Robert Mayo. 
Interrogatory to be answered by A. J. Donelson, Esq, : 

Read the first of the interrogatories contained in the paper now handed to you, to which is annexed the 
copy of a letter .tddressed by Gen. Andrew Jackson, late President of the United States, to Wm. Fulton, Ksq., 
dated WashiuKton, December 10, 1830; and slate whether you have any recollection of the original of that 
Iftlter, and whether you liave any knowledge of the manner in which it carafe into the possession of Robert 
iMayo, of Washinglo'u city? 

The deposition of Geu. Andrew Jackson, late Presiilenl of the United States, in the case of Robert Mavo 
Ts. F. P. Blair and J. C. Rives, for libel, now pending in the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia lor 
Washington couniy , Washiuston city. District of Columbia, who, beinc duly sworn, deposeth and saith that 
he resides at the Hermitage, in the county i f Davidsoft and State of Tennessee, about seven hundred and 
fifty miles fnmi the cily of Washingt.on- ,. , . , , ,,,•„■ t^ , ^ ^ 

To the first interroaatory he answereth and sailh, lie did write and send to William Fulton, then Secretary 
of the Territory of Arkansas, a letter, of which the annexed to the inten-oeatory is a true copy. 

To the second interroeatorj' he answereth and saith, that he wrote that letter on the day and at the place it 
purports to be written ; that is to say, at Washinelon city, December the lOlh, 1830. 

To the third interrogatory he answereth and saith, that Gov. Fulton did acknowledge the rec ipl of that 
letter and with it made a report of his proceedincs in pursuance of the request made in my letter: which let- 
ter and report was placed on file, with the copy of my confidential letter to him of date the lOth of December, 
18a\ and deiwsited in my confidential bureau in my office, from whence it was purloined. 

To the fourth interro!:ator>- he answereth and saith, that he did lake a copy of that letter when he wrote it, 
and placed it in his confideiitial bureau in his office. j.^ . ,. , , , 

To ihe.fifth interrogatory he answereth and saith, that he never did deliver a copy of that letter he wrote 
10 Governo.- Fulton to Robert IMayo, or to any other person. -..j, ,., 

To the si.xth interrosal«ry he answereth and saith, [1] that the aforesaid letter was purloined from his of- 
fice [2!| together with the report of Governor Fulton made lo him of [3] his investigation of General Houston's 
[4] meditated invasion of Texas, [5] which all proved fallacious, as appeared from Governor Fulton's re- 
port, [G] which report was placed with the copy of the confidential letter of the lOth of December, 1830, in 
mv confidential drawer in mv office, from whence it was purloined, as he believes, by some one, [7] and he 
lje'lie\-es by Robert Mayo, the plaintilT in the cause now pending. For this belief affiant begs leave to slate 
his [SI reasons: The plaintitT, Robert iMayo, had written him two [9] confidential letters, makins serious 
charges against many of the clerks employed by the Government in Washington, in its various Denartments. 
The«e coiifidentjal leuers were [1(1] placed in mv confidential drawer in my office, where [11] the copy of 
my leuer to Governor Fulton, then Secretary I'f the Territory of Arkansas, with his [12] reply and rejvn, were 
deiX'sited \fter [13] receiving these confidenlial letters from Robert IMayo, the plaintiff, this deponent in- 
formed him uhat he could [14] not, nor would not, lake any measures against those clerks on his confident ial 
comolaints ; that he must furnish deponent with specific [1,5] charges, to which these ckrks would be call- 
ed upon to respond ; that [16] all men were presumed to be innocent until guilt was est.iblished : that [17] 
every man charged with crime, or acts that would affect his moral character, ought to be heard in his own 
defence- and tliat he would [18] not act upon confidential and secret information acainst any one. The 
olaintiff. Robert Mavo, in a few [19] days thereafter pn sented this deponent witli a h.ng [20] list of charges 
In wrilin" acainst a' "real many clerks in the different Departments, which was forthwith [21] referred to 
the heads'ofnep:inmcmstobcfullvinvestigated,up(m which [22] investication Robert Mayo faijfd [23] 
lo establish his charges made acainst. any one individual charged. Soon [24] after this full [-o] investi- 
jration, Robert Mavo applied [26] to this deponent to withdraw these public charges ; deponent I'lhl him he 



, by one of ihc young gentlemen who had charge of the confidential papers of the Secretary of War 
ne. This de|ionent well remembers the answer made to this letter by iVir. Fullou, which was filed 



G 

the clerks were given up to liim. A few [30] days after the before mentioned nccunence, (he piaintiff, Rob' 
en Mayo, applied [31] to this deiwient, and requested that he, deponent, would return to him his two confi- 
deijtial letters, coiitainins charges against several clerks. These letters, as before recited, [10] had been 
placed in the confidential bureau, whtre [11] was als^^ deposited the cipy if the confidential letter if the 
lOth of December, 1830, to Governor Fulton. The drawer being very [3-2] lull, this deixinent had to take out 
many [33] papers to find those requested liy Robert Mayo to be returned, and lay them on his table, beside 
[31] which Robert 3Iayo was siliiiiE. This deponent having found the two letters, [35] returned them to 
Koberl Mayo, and told him for the lulure never to make chariir s a'.-ainst any one that he couW not < stab- 
lish. Durins [36] this search, deponent believes, Robert Mayo 3 eiug [37] this letter marked •' strictly con- 
fideniial," piirloined[3d] it, as it never could be found, althoueh diligent search had been made for it through 
all this deponent's jjapers, and in the Secretary of Slate and War Uepartmems, at the time the ex-President, 
John Q.Adams, in Congress, made the call u|jon the Secretary of State for tliis correspondence; nor was this 
letter ever heard of after, uniil it was produced in the House of Kernesentatives and read by Mr. J. Q. Adams 
in his ijl.iccasameiiiber. This deponent furiher stales that no ['39] person was permitted lu look into this con- 
fidential dniwer but [40] his |jrivatesecietai-y, Andw. J. Donelson,.ind Andrew Jackson, jr., when there ; who 
both liave stated to this deponent that thev, or either of them, never delivered or cave [41] a copy of the said 
letter, marked strictly confidential, dated 'the lOtli day of December, 1630, and addressed to William Fulton, 
or to any other persons ; and this affiant knows [ li] of no one who could have had [43] access to his private 
drawer in his office, or purloined this letter, but [44] Robert Mayo, the plaintifT, in whose possession this pur- 
loined leuer was found, [45] and acknowledged [46] by him to have handed to ex- President John Q. Adams, 
who used this said letter, marked "strictly confidential," in his speech in Congress. That this leuei was 
purloined by some [47] iierson, this deponent doth verily believe ; and from the whole [48] circumstances, as 
set forth and slated, the purloined letter beiiie [49] found in the possession of Robert Mayo, and marked [50] 
strictly confidential; and instead [51] of handing this letter to tnisafliani, which he [52] would andouehlto 
havB done had [53] it been handed to him bv any ■ me, he, as it ap| .ears, handed it to the ex-President, Adams, 
lo be used by him in Congress. This deponent does [54] believe that said letter was purloined [55] by Rob- 
en Mayo, the plaintiflfiirthis suit. 
This deponent not being further interrogated, saiih not. 

* ANDREW JACKSON. 

The deposition of A. J. Donelson, late private secretary of President Jackson, who being duly sworn, de- 
poseth and saitli that he resides in the county of Davidson and Stale of Tennessee, about seven hundred and 
fifty miles from Washington city— 

To the interrogatory addressed to him, this deponent answerelh and saith, that he has a clear recollection 
of the letter referred to, and of the circumstances under which it was written by the President. The copy of 
the letter siened by the President, which was forwarded to Blr. Fulton, was in the hand-writing of this depo- 
nent, as he believes ; and this deponent also believes that another duplicate copy was taken to the War De- 
partment by '" " .... .... «... .--.c. 

at that time. 

[56] with the original 'letter of the President. 

Roben Mayo, tne plaintiff in this cause, was never furnished by deponent with this original letter, nor will» 
a copy of it, nor was any other individual ; and this deponent being no funher interrogated, saith net. 

. A. J. DONELSON. 

True copy. 

Test: \VM. BRFNT, C7«r/t. 

Whoever has any acquaintance with the many gross injuries and unvoyanccs I have 
received from a vile Jacobin Faction here, since I discovered their insidious revohitionary 
designs, and abjured their associations, can form some estimate of the extreme fehcita- 
tions that now thrill my bosom at having a grapple, as it were, arm to arm and face 
to face, with the giikat ir-RESPoNsiBi.E, to vindicate myself in this new issue thus 
wantonly and unexpectedly thrust iijion me — as it will, while it enables 1110 to demolish 
the prime source of those grievous wrongs, necessarily have no small bearing upon the 
future development and proper understanding of the covuse I have pursued in the oflicial 
skirmishes it has been my fortune to encounter with most of the Departments during the 
administration of that iwtorious personage, and indirectly with himself, over their shoul- 
ders, since I have been a resident of Washington ; in justification of which i had under- 
taken to publish n book, now progressing at the jjrcss, at an expense and loss of time ex- 
tremely incDiivenieiit, *and aggravating to the embarrassments of every kind in which tfiusc 
injuries and annoyances have involved me. In the present hasty exposition, therefore, 
which I feel myself so unexpectedly called upon to make, I shall neither have lime nor in- 
clination to be very fastidious or select in my expressions, but shall allow them lo take the 
spoiitaiieoiis tone of a fervent indignation at this milrageous attempt of an ex-President 
of the United Stales lo sustain a giioss limkl by raising additional ra/unmics ■»Qainsl me. 

In the analysis and refutation I now propose to make of the foregoing AFFiniviT, I shall 
endeavor, nevertheless, for the sake of perspicuity, to bring together the material nllega- 
tions and inferences of the witness under three several heads or sKfTio>8, according to 
their alliiiitics, quoting his words ah they apply to the subjects of those several beads, and 
marking those quotations numerically, for a convenient reference to them, as correspond- 
ingly marked by me in brackets, in the affidavit, viz : 

1. 1 stiall throw into the Fir.st Srction, the charge, or 'belief,' of purloining, together 
xoith the attempt to connect with it a vindication by the deponent, of the disposalhe made 
of tin testimony he had in his possession, of Houston s conspiracy. 

2. In the Hecond Section, 1 shall more particularly notice the 'reasons' of the depo- 
wntfor his charge, or ' belief of purloining, as they relate to his alleged disposal and 



return to me (jf two confuhiitial Utters making charges agahi.st many clerlis, u/iich tie 
sai/s I had written to him. 

3. In the Third Section, 1 .shall notice the furllur reaions, or auxiliariea to the reasons, 
of the deponent for his charge, or 'belief,: of purloining, as they relate to a list of public 
charges, ivhich he sai/s 1 presented to him after he had refused to act upon the secret ones .■ 
the object of all which riiubhiig of the ili'iioiient into the field of fiction in, (to cull embel- 
lishments for hk scanty, meager, mutilated fuels, barely recogni.'^able in their fictitious ar- 
ray) nianifc.-lly to argue or beguile the eoi ur, the ji nv, and the niiLic, (witii the im- 
posing assistance of his inflated name,) into the Aiismi) " bklief" that one who could act 
♦he infamous part he has falsely imputed to me, would have purloined the copy of his letter 
to Fnllon icithout opportunity. 

I. Ill the tirsi place, to the sixlh iiUemigalory ihe deponent " answeretli and sailh [IJ that the aforwaid 
letter was purloined fmni his uirice"— •' and L' ] he brliives by Robert Mwjo. ihp plaintifT in the cause now 

Ssnding,"— " tocethrr [2] trilh the report of Gnvpruni- Fulmn made to him of [3] liis iiircsligalion of Genfral 
oiisiou's [4] meditated inrtision of Tpmis— [5] whicli all proved /o/ZaciOHS, a-s appeared from Governor 
Fulton's report"— •' which [G] rpport." [dspwherp culled, in thp allUlavit, a " rnply [12] and reixirt,"] Iih 
says, " was placed with the copy of the conlidpniial Iflter of liir HHh DeceinliPr, IS-'JO, in my confidential 
drawer in my office."' 

The public will presently perceive, from a comparison of the deponent's own statements, 
(if his testimony maybe pleaded in refutation of himself, ) how impossible it was 'that the 
aforesaid [1] copy' of his letter to Fulton could have been purloined at all; and how frivo- 
lous are the grounds of his 'belief [7] that I purloined it, even were it pos.sible that the 
deed could have been done by any one. Passing any minute examination of these point.";, 
then, for the jire.^cnt, till they come up with their connectives in the next skction, I shall 
only advert here to the contrast between this hardy assertion of General Jackson towards 
me, and the mort' manly course of Mr. Monroe toward.s Mr. Lowrie, in regard to the cele- 
brated No-party letter of (iencral Jackson in November, 1816, to Mr. Monroe, and Mr. 
Monroe's answer, which was in Mr. Lowrie's possession in February, 1824. In the cor 
respondence between General Jackson and Mr. Monroe on that subject, in 1824, which I 
have before me, (including the correspondence of 1816,) as published in the National In- 
telligencer ill May, 1824, General Jackson says, in his letter to Mr. Monroe of the 22d 
February, " If you know the date of your letter to me, that Mr. J.owrie is possessed of, I 
will ihank you to advise me." In Mr. Monroe's answer to General Jackson, of the same 
dale, he says, "I have no knowledge of the date of the letter to which Mr. Lowrie refers, 
nor can 1 imagine in what manner any letter of mine to yon, or other friend, should have 
gotten into the possession of any one." Again, he say.s, "I have no recollection of giving 
any cojiy of my views on the subject to any one. 'I"he copy in question, if correct, must 
have been resorted to for unfriendly purposes, and in breach of confidence, and \\wi prob- 
ably been purloined." Again : " //"my confidence given at the time referred to has been 
in any manner abused, on the letter been purloined, that is an incident which must dis- 
honor ///e /7ar/y guiltv of such actV;." Agreed, if it lucre so ; but Mr. Monroe does not even 
intimate 'n belief that Mr. Lowrie purloined that letter, (nor did he;) much less go into 
elaborate fabrications — or an enumeration of /rwe and /«/.sc/ac/s artfully mixed up, to give 
a coloring to such an inference ! Let it here be noted, however, that I do not lay nmch 
emphasis upon the correctness of the above extracts, as it is well known that the original 
letters referred to underwent considerable mutilations (I am crediiily informed sixty in 
number) by General Jackson's accredited and confidential agent in their publication. Major 
Eaton, who furnished the Philadelphia Observer with one copy of this mutilated corres- 
pondence, and the National Intelligencer with another copy, each materially difl'ering from 
the other, and both varying from the originals; thus falsified, of course, with General Jack- 
son's approbation, and with the intention of imposing upon the public. But both those 
mutilated copies making their appearance on the same day in the Philadeliihia and Wash- 
ington papers, their discrepancies were not noticed by the mitilatohb before it was too 
late to force them to agree, nor before General Armstrong ?-£wr<«A/ra/crf with General Jack- 
son upon an exceptionable passage he saw in the Philadelphia copy, which first met his 
eye, and which General Jackson denied, because that passage did not appear in the Wash- 
ington copy which he examined in the Intelligencer. 

The deponent is not content with declaring his belief that I purloined the copy of his 
confidential letter to Fulton, but charges me with the like depredation upon "the r<poit 
[2] of Governor F'ulton," " which report," [6] (elsewhere called in his affidavit "reply 
and report," [8]) he declares, as a reason for his belief, " was placed ivith the cojiy of his 
confidential letter of the 10th December, 1830, in his confidential drawer, in hie office. '' 
This is the first of the multiplicity of circumstances, artfully devised and dovetailed to- 



gether, in order to give some plausilnlitj- to the most improbable and morally impossible 
supposition, first, that the copy of his letter to Fulton was purloined; th?n, that the report 
of Fulton was purloined, together with that copy, because they were filed together; and 
that I purloined them both, because the copy oV the letter to Fulton is in my possession, 
as subsequently stated [45] in the affidavit. Everybody knows the fallacies to which ill- 
constructed syllogisms are incident. Let it suffice for the present to say, that there was 
nut any such documejit as a riph/ or report of any sort in company with the copy of the 
letter to Fulton, when the package that contained that copy was handed to me by the 
President's messenger — the mode, as I have frequently said, by which that copy came 
into my possession ; nor have I ever seen either reply or report, as separate documents or 
a common document ; nor have I ever had any satisfactory reason to believe, if that report 
or reply ever existed, that it was made and received i^' coon taith to the two countries 
whose interest and honor were at stake ! Had such a report ever come into my hands, and 
that in the abovementioned package, as did the copy of the letter addressed to " William 
Fulton, Esq., Secretary of the T. of Florida," (not Arkannuts,) I should probably have 
seen further evidence to confirm my exposition in a former publication, demonstrating 
the hypocritical Executive connivance at the conspiracy of Houston, for which that secret 
correspondence, sham or real, was evidently intended to perform the double alternative 
offices, to scuKEX and to uknt. 

But what "investigation" [3] could Mr. Fulton or any other person have made of a 
matter "strictly confidential," seeing that he could not exhibit hie authority to make such 
investigation'? Even in a matter of ordinary misdemeanor, so rigid an injunction ot 
secrecy would have been an insuperable obstacle to any iiivestisation. How impracticable, 
then, "musi he have found it, among parties who were bound together by aVi oath of iccrecy 
and fidelity, in an enterprise o/theasox ? Is it not, in f\ict, a perfect burlesque upon terms, 
to say that this mere Secretary of a Territory (which the President mistook for Florida in- 
stead of Arkansas) made an investigation under such circuni.<lances 1 But, suppose Ful- 
ton did hazard a formal exculpatory report, without the moral or physical possibility of 
having made the investigation alleged, as the district attorneys afterwards did //-awt/j/ZcH//'/ 
exculpate ivell known offenders, when this and other modes of manifesting the Executive 
bias, and giving a lead to public sentiment in favor of this enterprise throughout the West, 
had emboldened them to do so in the face of the universally known fact of military prepa- 
rations progressing before their eyes, for that enterprise — were r.ot the then transpiring 
and subsequent facts that w^erc uiged upon General Jackson from all quarters, suthcicnt tu 
have demanded from him (were he disposed to do his duty) a general proclamation, or at 
least a more general and unrestricted inquiry than that sham measure which was locked up 
in Mr. Fulton's breast? Surely, yes would be the universal answer; for the public has 
too fresh a recollection of the reiterated proclamations of the present executive incumbent, 
arising probably from a different estimate of the parties injured, in the parallel case of the 
Canada frontier, resulting in prosecutions, condemnations, and punishment of the of- 
fenders ; and they cannot have forgotten that in the case of Burr, Mr. Jefferson sent a 
bona fid agent of observation through the West, untrammelled with absolute secrecy, 
who.se object was generally known ; who was empowered not only to investigate freely, 
but to dissuade; and therefore was eflicicnt— and that Mr. Jefferson not only issued proc- 
lamation, but made repeated communications to Congress on the subject. But here I 
might well have asked, in the first place, what "meditated [4] invasion" was thi.<, which 
the deponent so slightly alluded to but once ! Was it tliat of which I gave him a most 
circumstantial statement in 1830, from Houston's own disclosures, and in which I referred 
to several witnesses 1 none of which circumstances does he deign to mention in his affi- 
davit, much less does it anywhere appear that he ever called upon a single one of those 
witnesses, or even upon Houstoi! himself, who was several times, pending the execution of 
that enterprise, on visits to his distinguished iiatron and friend, the depoiient I How, 
then, can he with truth pronounce in his affidavit that tliis "meditated invasion all 
pnoTKn 1'ALi.ACiovs," [5] when in fact he had, as I believe, studiously avoided every 
proper mode of causing it to be investigated ! Wliy did he not also give a brief statement, 
from his wonderful memory, of the contents of that report 1 I have no doubt he would 
have done so, did it ever exist, and he had supposed it would be as satisfactory to the 
V>iblic as he pronounces it teas to him .' Indeed, it surpasscfh my comprehen>ion that 
even (Jencral Jackson should have the hardihood now to say, in the face of history, that 
the slttlcment of Houston's enterprise, made too on the testimony of several credible wit- 
nesses, was ALL proved yALLACious by the report of a single individual, so circumstanced 



a 



that it was impossible for him to have made a competent investigation, and which report 
he had never thought proper to refer to in any manner belore, not even in ihoi-e tiuiesi 
when he was so straightened in his correspondence with the Mexican Minister for " rea- 
sons" to justify or to excuse his obdurate incredulity in the matters ^ct forth. I might well 
retort ui>on him here, as also at the conclusion of this, my refutation oMiis alFidovit, and 
say that such a declaration is suflicient, alone, "to destroy him aS a man of truth and 
sincerity.lorevcr hereafter," liiii that now wait to be i)o>e ! 
II. Tlie dcponenl sues on lo say—" For this belief [ihal Ribeit Mayo purloined llie copy of hi8 confidential 




on ho snvs, " Tliis deponent further slates, that no [39] person teas peniiillcd lo look inin lliis ccnfidcntial 
drawer tut [10] his iJiivate secretary, Andrew J. Donclson, and Andrew Jackson, jr.,"who" li'th havestatu 
111 this del oncnl that they, or either of lluin, never dtlivert d or pave [41] a cmiy 1 1 the said 1< iter niark' d 
'slriclly confidential,' dalrd the lOih day of December, lb3Ci, and addressed to W illiani I ulton, [t<r RoLerl 
Mayo, he protatly meant lo say,] or lo iuiy oiher pereon ; and this affiant knows [-li] ot no cne who could 
have had [W] access to liis I'ri'vatc drawer in liis office, or i.urloined this h Iter, bill [I!] Kubert Mayo, in 
whose possession this purloined letter was found, [Jo] and acknowledged [10] liy him to have handed to ex- 
President John Q. Adams." 

" Aft'er [13] receiving ihese confidential letters from Robert Mayo," SRys he, " this deponent uifomied hirn 
that he could not, [11] nor trould nol, lake any measures aaainst those clerlis on his confidential comfilants ; 
that he must furnish deponent with [15] specific charses, to which tliose clerks would be calkd ufmn lore- 
siwnd ; ihat [16] all men %Yere presumed to be inni cent until guilt was rslablished ; that [17] every man 
charcred with crime, or acts that would aflecl his moral character, out:hi to lie htard in his c^wii defence ; and 
that he rjcoxld [18] i:ot act upon confidential or secret iufirmation against any one." Again, lo this mallrr, 
he says : " A few days [30] after the before-memioned occurrence, [alluding lo a fictitii^is orcurrence de- 
vised and brousht in between the alleced reception and return of these fictitious letters; which fabricated 
occurrence will be discussed in the next section.] ihe plainlilT, Robert Mayo, applied [31] to this deixmeni 
lo return to him his two confidential letters, containing charses against several clerks." " Thr so letters," he 
lepeats, " as before recited, [10] had been placed in the confidential bureau, where [11] was also deix'sited 
the couiidcnlial letter of ihe Unh December, 183(;», to Governor Fulton. The drawer hems very \J^Z]full," 
says he, "this deponent had to lake out mam/ [33] pcqjers to find tliose requested by Robert Mayo lo be re- 
turned, and lay them on the table beside [34] whic'.i Robert Mayo was silling. This deponent," he conlm- 
iies, " having lound the two If iters, [:i)] relurnfd them lo Robert Mayo, and told him never to make charges 
acainst any one that he could not establisli. During [3G] this search," says he, "deponent believes Robert 
Mayo, seezHf [37] this letter marked • stkictly confidential,' purloined it, as it never could be found, "&c. 

I should think it would seem passing strange to the minds of most men, how minute 
General .laekson professes to be in his recollection of the most circumstantial details, after 
a lapse of many year?, and that, too, without a document to assist his memory ; while I 
confess that, with a tolerably retentive memory of niy own, I should yet be a little at a lo.s;; 
to recollect v.ith accuracy some of the circumstances of quite an adverse state of thtr lact.s, 
without the aid of the mass of documents I have in my possession, to refresh and coiilirm 
my recollection of them. Without those documents, and in the absence of my du'tlij ohow- 
iNG KNOWLEDGE, for scvcral jjcurs pcif^f, of General Jackson's unfoutunate foiiiie, I 
should, perhaps, be almost induced to doubt the validity of my own recollections in contra- 
diction of such a tissue of peremptory asseverations he has woven into this aflidavit. 

It has been seen how positively he asserts that the copy of his letter to Kulton was 
placed, with Fulton's reply and report, in his confidential drawer, (that is, "filed" [56] 
with it, as Major Donel.son expre.s.ses it,) and that the copy of the letter, together with the re- 
port, were both purloined, as he believed, by Robert Mayo; and now we see, he "further 
states that xo [d^] person was jiermitted to look into this confidential drawer hit [40] his 
private secretary, Andrew J. Donelson, and Andrew Jack.'on, jr." Yet, again, in another 
place, he says *• and this alliant [42] knows o{ no oxe who could have had [43] access to 
this confidential drawer in his ofiicc, or purloined this letter, but [44] Robert IVIayo." Now, 
eveiT sane and ingenuous mind must be at a loss to conceive how I could have had acccis 
to this confidential drawer, whci\ no one teas pcrniilicd to louh into it but the two persons 
mentioned! What, then, can anyone imagine, was the nature of the access pretended to 
be set up for me, in ihe face of this unqualified interdiction 1 It will be in vain to attempt 
to make it out from his afiidavit, if it be not in that part of it where he fabricates a talc of 
his making, " a [3G] search" in this drawer, in my presence, (for certain alleged ' two con- 
fidential [0] letters' of mine, to return them to me, while he would have mc to be sitting 
beside the table on which, his confidential drawer where they were deposited being very 
full, he had to lay many papers ;) and says, that "during this search, deponent believes 
Robert Mayo, seeing [37] this letter [meaning his letter to Fulton] marked ' stiuctlt cox- 
EinEXTi Ai," purloined it," &c. Now, passing by the quetticn oj fact, as to two confidcniial 
letters, for due consideration in its proper routine, let it be here suppoicd that such a Ivbic 
scene ever did exist; I would then ask every man who has any acquaintance with the trans- 



10 

tions of business at a desk or table, while another is silting by, what kind of access it is, 
whereby that other could purloin his papers before kis face, or would dare hazard such an 
enterprise ? Does not the supposition bear absurdity in every aspect of it I What would 
not be the state of daily insecurity of the documents in the public otfices generally, and ol 
every man's private papers, in the transaction of business with our fellow-citi'.ons ! In- 
deed, such a frr-fefched sujiposUion, to dandle a string of falsehoods and absurd reason- 
ing upon, could hardly have been hazarded to tantalize the veriest dupes in the world with- 
al, not even by General Jackson himself, had he not already been eniboldcncd (by the oft- 
repeated and wonderful instances of public infatuation, in sustaining his outrageous acts 
and declarations on more important occasions,) to dare say or do any tiling that his 
ambition or malignity might prompt him to, however absurd the one, or ruinous iBe other 
to his country's weal ! Such a supposition is sufficient at once to challenge and to defy 
both the audacity of a pickpocket, and the skill of the most consummate adept in the jug- 
gler's art! Nay, it is too preposterous to eidist the credulity even of the proselytes ot the 
new Jacobin school oi moral depravity sprung up under his coiihuptisg patronaoe, 
much less of any one decent citizen who has a personal respect for that sacred remnant of 
the bankrupt American stock of honor and good faith, national and individual, with 
which the Jackson era has played such wild and destructive havoc ! 

It may be worth while here to enter into a little calculation, from which I apprehend a 
most conclusive argument ad absurdunt must follow. The deponent says, that alter re- 
ceiving these confidential letters from me, ho told me he icould not take measures against 
those clerks upon my secret coniplaiiits ; that I must furnish him with specific charges ,- that 
" in a few \lays thereafter I )ire. ented him with a long list of charges, in writing, against a 
great many clerks in the difl'crent Departments,'" which, he says, "were forthwith referred to 
the hcadsof departments to be fully investigated ; " and that '• soon after this full investiga- 
tion, I applied to withdraw these public charges." And again, that "a few days after that oc- 
currence, I rcquesteil him to return me the two confidential letters, which he had [daced in 
his confidential drawer, where the copy of his letter to Mr. I'ulton, together with Fulton's 
reply and report, had been deposited; and that, in looking into his drawer for those two 
letters, "he had to take out many papers, and lay them on the table beside \\hich I was 
.silting," [which, of course,jSU[)|)oscs that these letters had already gotten nearly to the bot- 
tom of the mass of his conlidential pnpers.] He also says that 1, seeing the letter to Ful- 
ton marked 'strictly conliilcntial, ' purloined it ; [and, of course, that letter was among those 
taken out, and necessarily was nearer, the top of the mass than those two confidential let- 
ters of recent date.] Now I .shall not trouble the reader with any comment upon the ab- 
surdity of so muct work being alleged to have been done in rapid succession " in a few 
<Jayjj" — for that is the substitute the deponent makes for all dates, months, anil years that 
had Iteen transi)iriiig; but I will call his attention to the absurdity of representing those 
two letters said to be of recent date, as being already covered over by a mass of other con- 
fidential documents, among which the letter to Fulton (which was jjrobably several years 
old, accortling to the date of the private secretary's letter in behalf of the J'residcnt to Mr. 
De Kratl't, which probably fi.\cs the year tieneral Jackson woidd bespeaking of) was nearer 
to the lop of the drawer. It is not for ine to conjecture how such extraordinary circum- 
stances could have happened; it was incumbent on the witness to explain them, since he 
lelies ui)on this table scene alone to show how I might have ilone what he labors so haid to 
induce others to believe. If he had really taken pains to file his papers at (///in classes, as 
he pretends to have filed Fulton's xv\)\\ with the original, why could he not have laid hands 
on those of recent dale, without tumbling his papers, pcll-iiKll, old and new, on the tabic, 
to find those of recent date at the bottom! But, when he alleged thai I saw this letter marked 
(37] ' Ktrictly confidential,' and therefore purloined it before his face, he overreached himself, 
ill the malignity of his zeal to convict me of a disgraceful act, by the assertion of what he 
could not know — iiascd, loo, ujwn what did not exist,- for, in the first place, who will not 
perceive that this statement discredits itself, when he considers how impossible it is that 
the afltant could know that I saw this letter was marked ' strictly confidential ;' when, 
too, he'is not even certain it was among those he had laid on the table ! And yet what will 
every one say of tJie audacity of this device, when, in the ne.\t place, they are informed 
that the letter in fact is not so marked on the oi/tsiile, but is .so headed irithin the folds of 
it ■' But even were it so marked externally, and 1 did see it so marked., yet might 1 not <isk, 
what motive could I have had to select (hat letter from a mass of others similarly marked, 
no doubt, as we are told they were all of the same confidential character ? For could I, ex- 
cept by some prctcrnaturul gift of intuition, have be«n able to pitch upon that particular 



11 

letter, of the existence or the rantcnts of whith, acconiinp to General Jackson's own sliow- 
ing, I could have had no previous knovvleilge — n(jr did the cntiorsement upon it in- 
timate any interest that I could possil)!y have in — it heing addressed to ' William Fulton, 
Esq., Secretary of the T. of Florida,' whom 1 knew not, and there being, in fact, no such 
person ! And yet, to borrow a little more coloring of |ilausil)ility from another fiction 
or two of his mind, he says, in a disingenuous malignant, and perverted phraseology, preg- 
nant vv'th virtual falsehood, that "in my posscssiun this purloinc*d letter was [45] /ounrf," 
and that 1 acknowledged, [16] having handed it to Mr. Adams, whereas there was neither 
Jiiidi'ii^uoT (irkiioiokc/gltig, in the sense attempted to he communicated by the (/«' and re- 
iteration [49] of those scandalizing terms, as they are commonly understood under such 
circumstances. On the contrary, I had made it a voluntary and special act of my own to 
e.xhibit the copy to several gentlemen shortly after receiving it, brjhre I showed it to Mr. 
Adams, whom I authorized to make any use of it that he .should think proper, informing 
him that I intended to publish a fac simile of it, and therefore could not let it go out 
of my possession, but furnished him with a copy. Now, where is \\\q finding and the 
acknowledging, as if by compulsion, or process of cross-examination, or any other pro- 
cess than my own voluntary act, of free choice and self-advisement ? Ay, it was my pride 
to hold fast to it, and to proclaim it f o the world, had it been the last act of my life — as an 
indisputable evidence of a President of the United Slates descending front the liigli re- 
sponsibilities (f his lofty station topluij second fiddle to a conspirator against the peace 
and territorial integrity of a neighboring, friendly, sitter republic,- making himself 
parliccpsc?iniinis in the systematic treason of a sworn band of land pirates, m the cow- 
ardly act of despoiling the domains if a wcalicr Potcer, rent and btnucd dmrn n:ith inicinal 
troubles, wiiile the mimics of that lawless band, who unwittingly followed their e.xampic on 
a more powerful I'rontier, were (upon the same cowardly principle, which i-erved in the place 
of justice) not merely left to their fate, but prosecuted and punished, not as a sacrifice to the 
spirit of ei/ual Justice in behalf of ihc shorn lamb, but as a propitiation to the God of War, 
that gave a weak and time-serving Executive affright in the emblem of a rampant lion! 
It was for this f.i,yjo.v»;e that I have given oflence to the immaculate party ; that is the 
grievance which the deponent, his ajiologists, and his colleagues have against me — not that 
they believe I ever did or could have perpetrated the deed imputed ; and I doubt not Ciene- 
ral Jacksvn would have gone the length to say he saw me take it, if that would not have 
impugned the idea of purloining; but, thank God, I am too well fortified for hini orhis-con- 
federatcs to succeed \n their uidiallowed conspiracy -igiiinst me, or to cover their own shame 
by such a clamor. Indeed, I need not say to any discerning mind that the entire drift 
of the studied and reiterated scandalizing ))hraseology of the whole affidavit obviously is 
to defame " the plaintifl'in the suit." It would also be superfluous for me to declare, as I 
nevertheless solemnly do, that I have no recollection of being present at any time whatever 
when General Jackson was examining his confidential l)ureau, or that he had such, unlest; 
there be an exception to this, in a particular instance, when he invited me to his chamber to 
examine certain documents (which he took from a large trunk, not a bureau or table drawer) 
in relation to his invasion of the Spanish territory of Florida during Mr. Monroe's admin- 
istration, and which examination I was invited to make, with the view to establish a charge 
of falsehood he alleged against Mr. Monroe ; but having taken no steps in the matter, myself, 
after examining the documents exhibited to me i)y General Jackson, I was astonished to 
perceive tlial the same thing was attempted some time afterwards, by a communication 
from Samuel (Jwin, Esq., the [lersonal and intimate fri-end of General .lackson, which 
communication was published in the Richmond Enquirer, shortly after (iwin had left a 
clerkship in the Post Office Department here, to otliciate in a more lucrative a)ipointment 
in the Land Oflice. as register or receiver in Mississippi. The asperities of the original 
design were much mitigated, however, in that communieaion, as to the positive induc- 
tions of faksehood ; but it bore all the other internal evidences of its origin in the indica- 
tions of the then tenant of the President's mansion. I waive any particular notice here, 
of the palpable discrepancies or incongruities between the deponent's declaration of '■belief 
that I purloined the copy of his letter to Fulton, together with Fulton's rejiort, the subse- 
quent cou|)ling of a reply of Fulton with the report, and his afterwarJii, throughout the 
affidavit, characterizing the purloining as being coiijined to the copy of the letter to Ful- 
ton, by ever afterwards speaking of it singly. 

It has been seen tUat, in order to lind me in his mind's eye, and to depict me in hi.s 
affidavit, as being present beside the table while he was making this search in his confi- 
dential drawer, the deponent states that "the plaintilf, Robert Mayo, had written him two 
[9] confidential letters, making serious charges against many clerks employed by the Gov- 



12 

ernment in Washington, in its various departments; that tliese letters were [10] placed 
in his confidential drawer in his office, where the confidential letter to Governor Fulton, 
then Secretary' of Arkansas, with his reply [12] and report, were deposited." He then says, 
that "after [13] receiving these confidential letters from Robert Mayo, the plaintiff, this 
deponent informed him that he could [14] nul, nor would not, take any measures against 
those clerks on his confidential complaints ; that he must furnish deponent with specific 
[15] charges, to which these clerks would be called upon to respond" — alleging "that all 
[16] men are presumed to be innocent until guilt is established;" "that every [17] man 
iharged with crime, or acts that v\'ould affect his moral charaoler, ought to be heard in his 
own defence; and that he ivould [\S] not act upon confidential and secret information 
against any one." lie also says that, "a few [30] days afier" a certain alleged occurrence 
presently to be noted, "the plaintilT, Robert Mayo, applied [31] to him, and requested that 
he, deponent, would retu.n to him his two confidential letters." "'riiesc letters," says he, 
" as before recited, [10] had been placed in the confidential bureau, wherc[l 1] was also de- 
posited the copy of the confidential letter of the lOtli December, 1830, to Governor Ful- 
ton." He continues: "the drawer being very [32] full, this deponent had to take out ma/jy 
[33] papers to find those requested by Robert Mayo to be returned to him, and lay them 
on the table beside [31] which Robert Mayo was sitting;" and adds, "this deponent 
having found the two letters, [3.')] returned ihem to Robert Mayo, and told him for the 
future never to make charges against any one that he could not establish ;" and, finally, 
we are enabled to appreciate the object of this smooth tale, when he says, "during [36] 
this search, deponent believes Robert Mayo, sekixk [37] this letter marked ' strictlj/ 
confidential,' purloined it," &c. Now, taking in their order these allegations so artfully 
devised and strung together, I soleiimly aver that I never wrote General Jcickwn a confi- 
dential letter, in any capacity, in my life — neither so expressed, nor so implied ; but always 
expressed, or implied from their purport, to be disposed of cm he should think proper. I 
have many reasons against the doctrine of secrecy, against the inculcation of secrecy, and 
never took an oath of secrecy on any account. These mysterious devices I view in no 
better light than cloaks and guards to conceal and protect conspirator.^ and bandits in the exe- 
cution of their lawless and predatory designs ; and I go the extent to say that I have always 
been a practical anti-mason with regard to my own acts; that from principle I abhor 
secrecy in my own afTair-s, and have an utter aversion to be charged with the burden of 
secrecy in the affairs of others, when it can be ;ivoided ; and I hold lliat a coxfidf.stial 
«;o:>nicN"ic.iTiox upon official business (except in peculiar relations) is particularly ob- 
jectionable, as paralyzing the freedom of etficieut acti m upon the matter communicated. 
Common sense would say that a discretion should, from the necessity of the case, be 
always granted to the officer or agent, on such occasions.* If I could ever have a motive 
that would be sufficie V. to overcome my repugnance to secrecy, it ought to have operated 
on me in the case of my communication to the I'rcsident, detailing the plans of Houston's 
enterprise against the Mexican dominions. I knew Houston was the intimate and cher- 
ished friend of General Jackson, long before the election of the latter as President of the 
United States : that he had been upon the most gracious terms with the President, during 



* Secrecy is ihai dark mysterious cloak whicli is indispensable to the accomplishment of all the wickei' 
plots wherewith indiviiluals or combinations of men )>laL'iie anil torment their unwary foUow-heiuis. What- 
ever be the abundance of tlieir oilier resources, tlieir lawless enterprises must nevertheless fail, without this 
impenetrable maullo thrown over ilie lab iratory of Ui.ir preparations. It lias been tlie chief means of the 
successiv? destruction of PMipires, arisini from comparatively small causes, nunured, ramified, and grown 
formidable in the dens of the conspirators. To go no further bade than the time when General Jackson 
bec'imo the clandostine nominee of Aaron Burr for the Presidency, with the co-operation of masonic associa- 
tions, wc may safclv pronounce the success of that inlriizue to be the origin of the widespread ruin that hits 
since come over tins country, viewed in every aspect nf her moral, physical, and political deterioration and 
fallen condition! What can be more characteristic of the dark purp.>ses of the man, than that declaration 
of his to Mr. Buchanan, upon being asked whom he would bring alxmt him tii constiuite his cabinet advisers 
in llie event of his^lociion by the House of Kepresentaiives iii ISio, when he, in liis bilter tone of denimci- 
aiion and reproof, said, " if he thoucht a hair of his head knew his intentions, he would pluck it out !" Had 
it then or afterwards been cenenilly known whom he would select as his associates and advisers, high and 
low, in achieving the various debiisemenis of the public service and national character, would any man 
dare enterlain the belief or wisli that he should ever be elected President of the United Slates, particularly 
if he could have t;iken into the account tlie deeds which lie rpserved for the defilement of his second term'; 
But having gradually spread corrupti.in far and wide, by the abuses of his execuiivp (latronace, he has 
brought on that iliirk era in tlie history of liis dovoteil countrymen, when a considerable majority of tliem, 
vet heedless of the destruction in preparation for them, liave at last tolerated the dictation of a successor at 
his liands; who alsi pusiUanimously pminis'-d to do him lionor therefor, by following the footsteps of his 
illustrious predecess ir, and probably submits to be thp tool of his dictations in his nominal retirement. 1 can 
but say, the more I see of the disinieiiuius acts of the Jackson drama, the more am I inclined to view secrbcv 

AND INTlllGUE 83 COltSins-gCniian to DU'LOMATIC LVIJJO. 



13 

his visit here iii the winter of lS29-'oO, and had been invited, as lie (Houston) informed 
me, to take his lodgings at the President's house, which " he declined for the sake of ap- 
pearances." From these, and a variety of other circumstances, (among which General 
Jackson's former agency in the conspiracy of Burr, rovived by Houston, is not the least,) 
I had ample reason to believe that this same General Jackson was already cognisant of this 
scheme of Houston. I therefore may safely say, without the imputation of vain boasting, 
now, when I have so fully proved my defiance of unjust suffering in a thousand shapes 
rather than be recreant to the principles of my whole life, that I took great hazard upon 
myself of being tomahawked at sight by Houston, who was a demi-savagc by adoption, 
and of incurring General Jackson's displeasure, while I was, and had been for more than 
eighteen months, in almost daily expectation of an official appointment — when, as soon 
as I had other corroborating evidence to sustain me, besides the detailed avowals of Hous- 
ton, I communicated the whole to the President — in the hope to check-mate this would-be 
King of Texas, and- counteract Cicncral Jackson's collusion, if it existed, by interposing 
the liigii and sacred obligations of his official station ; but it happens that that was a very 
small impediment to the wilfulness of the gre.\.t innEsroxsiuLE ! With this view, 
however, that communication was fearlessly made, and accompanied with the express 
authority in the first .sentence of it, " to be used in any lua)/ your excellency may deem 
proper." I will not, here, go into l\\c particulars to show that General Jackson did not 
make such use of that communication as his high official respon.-ibilily called on him to 
do — that he did not call upon the witnesses I referred him to — that he did not promptly 
admonish the district attorneys, and other legal agents throughout the West and other 
.scenes of preparation, of their duty in reporting and suppressing thOse incij-ient move- 
ments — that his call upon Mr. Fulton (the mere Secretary of a Territory, and whosw 
brother I am informed was a recruiting oflicer of Houston,) was not made in good faith as 
an efficient measure, but as a sham, a blind, to give to the conspiracy his connirance, and 
to the communication respecting it an unceremonious, or rather a disingenuous dismissal ; 
to which purposes the unofficial character of his letter, with the rigid injunction " strictly* 
conlideiitial" were to be subservient — and that his excuse in said letter, for not addressing 
it to the Governor instead of the Secretary of the Territory, to wit, "that the Governor 
is understood to be now in Kentucky," was a sheer assumption to render more opaque the 
thin veil he was throwing over the transaction, as the Governor was not in Kentucky, but 
ivas at his post in Arkansas. Nor need I tarry here to show that the negations of Mr. Ful- 
ton's individual report (if in fact he ever iimde one) could not have been satisfactory under all 
the cir>;umstances; and if it were so considered at the time, there were ample reasons, under 
the notorious military preparations that shortly ensued through the W'est, why the President 
should have made interdictive proclamation, upon those developments accruing, confirma- 
tory of the details I had comn^unicatcd to him; much less will I here descant upon the 
direct and wanton discredit he throws upon that coninuinication, in his secret letter to 
Fulton, and that too witliout "investigation," "full and fiiir," of which he makes such 
vain boasting in another part of his affidavit, on another subject, but vvituout tiiutu I 
Proceeding, then, to the next fiction in this romance of this political mountebank, viz: 
"that these confidential letters were placed in his confidential drawer," it will be sufficient 
for me to a.sk the common sense of every man, what motive could General Jackson have, 
in the ordinary course of 'secret and conndentiul' communications, for placing these letters 
(did they exist) in his confidential executive bureau ! Would he not have naturally returned 
them to me,- with his prompt forthwith, (at the lime he thus disclaimed action upon them,) 
as being of no value to him ? For what purpose could he have retained them, after informing 
me peremptorily that he could not nor loould not take any measures against those clerks on 
my confidential complaints] Or, why should it not more reasonably have occurred to me 
at that conjuncture to have requested their return, rather than make that request at a sub- 
sequent time, when another overwhelming disgrace had supervened, according to his state- 
ment, which would naturally have obliterated any thought from my mind of this compara- 
tively small alfair! The answer to all this is obvious: the concocted tale would have been 
imperfect, and shorn of its symmetry — he would not have had it in his power afterwards, 
to represent me as' sitting hy his confidential bureau, to purloin a paper from a mass of 
others, before his face, while he was examining them for those repudiated confidential letters 
to return them to me by my reqtiest .' 

As to the alleged demand of me, that I must furnish him with specific cliarges to 
which those clerks would be called on to resp-md, besides showing, as I now have done, that 
no such expression could have been used upon an occasion that never did txist, I shall be 



14 

able to show, on a full investigation hereafter, and in a summary manner, in the next clauae, 
that I had full preliminary authority, both by particular request from a confidential officer 
of his lower Cabinet, and by repeated encouragement and recognition from the President 
himself, to assist in compiling lists nf opposition officers in the departments, together 
with a statement of the reprehensible practices in any manner connected with persons in 
office — as auxiliary means of salutary reform, to be acted upon as he should think proper, 
but in no manner whatever connected with the present subject, or with 'confidential com- 
plaints,' as he would feign have it. Is it not manifest that this alleged demand of me 
tor "specific charges" is thrown info this affidavit, in order to give some color oi justifi- 
cation for those lists that were made out by numerous contributors, under authority and 
circumstances totally disconnected with the matter now in hand ^ or, to shift the odium of 
responsibility for them from himself and the other participators in them, upon my shoulders 
alone T Moreover, is it not palpable to every one in any degree acquainted with General 
Jackson's history previous to and during his Presidential terms, that he avails himself of 
this fabricated occasion to interpolate a fraudulent profession of principles by which he 
pretends to be governed? viz: 'that all men are presumed to be innocent until guilt is 
established ; that every man charged with crime, or with acts that would a fleet his moral 
character, ought to be heard in his own defence !'* Yes, I think I may safely say that 
everv man in this communitj' knows what value to put upon such professions, coming 
from one who has consigned so many of his fellow-beings to a cruel late, in direct contra- 
vention of those principles — who has igiioininiously sacrificed hecatombs of public officers, 
not only without a hearing, but without a fault, and even without an intimation to them 
to prepare for the sacrifice, or that there was any imputation against them, (who, ten to one, 
are better patriots than their wrong-doer,) to make places for political favorites — with a 
billet or death-warrant of a few parsimonious peremptory words, — ' your sfrvicf.s are 
xo T.oxfiER WAXTKn:' which launches the victims and their families suddenlif and unpre- 
pared into a world of vexatious troubles, penury, want, and all the torments of that living 
* death consequent upon this artificial seeming of one's country's disfavor, worse than death's 
reality, as, living, there is no adequate revenge to sweeten this bitter cup of crying injustice, 
while ill death's reality it would he forgotten! Bui, in my case, by peculiar good fortune 
in the niid'^t of infurinted party persecution, the blind zeal of an interested deponent has 
afibrded mc this occasion oi signal reaction upon my cai.vmsiator, of irhich I am proud 

IF HE WIIL LIVE TO FEEL IT ! ! ! 

III. ll has jusl been seen, lli^" deponeiil slates, that iipm his refiisiiit' to act nyion the two roiifiilpmial Ipi- 
trrs iniputpd to nie, he told me 1 must fiirnisli liiiii with specific charges, and then he goes on to say : " 1 he 
plaintin, Robert Mayo, in a few days [19] Ihereafier, (nieanini; after lie rei^iired me lo furnish him with spe- 
cific chaiffes,) presented this deponent with a Ion;; [•2(l] list of charges in writing against a sreal many clerks 
in the difP^rent denarlments, which was fortlnrilh ['21] referred lo ihe heads of Deparlmenls to lie fnlly in- 
vestigated, upon wliich [2'2] investigation Robert Mayo failed [23] lo establish his charges made against any 
one individual chaige<l." Also, that "soon [24] after this full [23] investigation, Rolien Mayo applied lo[26] 
this deponent to withdraw these public charges;" that" deponent told him he [27] inight,asihe charge s being 
made by him and not eslablished, would, now being on my public files, destroy [28] him us a man of truth 
forever ; and I referred him to my private secrelarv. Major A. J. Donelson, to got them." Again ; that " this 
'depinent was informed [29] t>y 'Robert Mayo ancl Major Doneism that theee public charges against the 
clerks were given uii to him." 

♦ Here is a fine specimen of that beau-ideal of systematic lying by which the wicked so often profess 
and profane the sacred firinciples of honor, iuslice, morality, and religion, in order to conceal their ultra 
diabolical (lurposes, which invulve the mo.st rtasiran'. infractions of those principles. It wouM be a very in- 
stniclive lesson at the presrnt crisis, could the .\meiican public have a succinct enumeration of the atrocious 
deeds that have lieen ]ieriieirated in all times by the tcrbclknt antagonists of lawand civilization, under 
this specious mask of sacred principles. Suchprofessions constitute the substrata of all the airy supersiruc- 
uires of that fraternity of innovators, disorganizers, anarchists, plunderers, and destructives, wlio call them- 
selves friends of ihe people, bui are Jacoliins in dissuise all the world ovpr,anil only await the fit occasion 
to declare war lo the Icnifc, war to the hilt, acainsl all the institutions of civilization. This specious system 
of LYING is ihe symimtiieiic pi inciple of instinct by which Jacobins recopnise each other and assirl together, 
lo cheat and supplant the friends of law, order,ann rational liberty, in all countries, and continually jeopard- 
ize the cause of civilization in all ases. Did not this same sect, in the French Revolution, profess the 
abstract philosophical principles of liberty, penality, and justice, which they rarely practised when any 
thing was lobe gained by their perversion ? Did they not affect to accuse that porti'm of tlieir fellow-citi- 
zens whom they called ARISTOCRATS, with murderii'iir and plundering one another, in order to brine dis- 
grace and infaniv on their friends and adherents the ferocious rfj/iocia/s, whom they had systematically and 
clandestinely in'sli?aled lo perform those cruel and savage horrors'! And is it not the universal practice of 
the same sect of ihe present day, to profess principles they never perform, and accuse their Whig opponents 
of the abominations familiar only to their own hands, in order to disguise the ulterior revolutionary purposes 
with which they now imminently threaten the country 7 Advening to the party incidents that have taken 
date from the commencement of the Jackson era, we have superal)Ounding evidence of this system of de- 
ception and fraud, in the professions of reform made at the incipience of his administration.' which were 
only meant, as the event has proved, to cover the premeditated sins of official proscription on the one hand, 
and party farorilism on theoiher, to the Infinite eml-arrassnient and deterioration of the public service. 



15 

In the first specification in this third section, there is a very material error, a.-j I never 
diJ present General Jackpon with such a list as he describes, of charges made by myself 
against a i^reat many clerks in the ditTerent departments ; but I did, at an interval of nearly 
two years — perhaps a little over two years between — present him with two lists, of which I 
have spoken in a pamphlet jmblished in 1837, as the second and Tninn editions of re- 
form ; tlie first list, or edition of reform, having been presented to him by some of his 
coadjutors in reform upon his instalment into office many months before I had visited 
Washington, or had any knowledge of the proscription then contemplated. 'J'he afliant 
doubtless predicates this statement, in part at least, upon one of those two lists which I 
presented to him above mentioned ; it is not probable that he alludes to the first of them, 
which I have called the second edition of reform, because that list (a garbled copy of which, 
if I mistake not, was published in the extra Globe of the 1st of May, 1831) contained com- 

S)aratively few charges, but consisted chiefly of the names of opjiosition clerks and oflicers 
lere, that had been turned out, and of others that yet remained in offic; obnoxicms to re- 
form for opinion's sake; in the compilation of which list I assisted William Hunter, Esq., 
a clerk of Amos Kendall while 4th Auditor, by his (Kendall's) request conveyed to me by 
his clerk, he retaining one copy for Kendall, and 1 one for General fackson. 'J'his list 
occaBioned little or no public excitement, ])robably because no action that I know of was 
ever taken upon it, more than to plead the furbearance of the President, through the col- 
umns of the Globe and other party prints, pcndini^ the second election ranipaign nf General 
Jackson, then commenced. If the deponent alludes to the second list, accompanied with a 
memorial signed by sundry citizens of Washington, presented to him in May, 1833, then he 
falsities the origin of it, as just shown, and is mistaken, wilfully or otherwise, in nearly every 
thing he alleges in regard to it, except that itwds forthwith referred to the heads of Depart- 
ments, or his cabinet, as I had informed General Cass, his Secretari/ (f War, he tvould do, 
the mnrnina; previous. Whether he ordered its contents to be fully investigated, I know not ; 
but that such investigation wa.f made, as he asserts, I can prove to be ynfrne by the uni- 
versal recollection of the clerks, and the gentlemen then ofliciating in his cabinet, bi/ ivhost 
discountenance, mainli/, it was suppRKssF.n. And that I fiiiled to establish my charges 
against any one individual charged, I can ecjually prove to be false,- for a failure to estab- 
lish, im|)!ies that I had an opportunity to do so ; whereas, I was denied, on my written ap- 
plication, to be heard, or even to have the witnesses called that had been referred to in 
support of their own statements, though I always understood that they were ready to sub- 
stantiate what they had stated ; and I repeatedly declared my readiness, both verbally and 
in writing, to establish the few facts that 1 bad stated. When I presented to the l*resident 
my written application to be heard, declaring my readiness to go into the investigation of 
the statements by testimony, he referred me, by endorsement upon the letter, to Mr. Mc- 
Lane, then Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. McLane, being engaged, or perhaps from a 
determination not to entertain the investigation, did not see me ,■ in consequence of which, 
I repaired directly to the Secretary of War, (General Cass,) as one of the cabinet, ajid 
presented him with the reference from the President. TIpon presenting the letter, with the 
President's endorsation upon it, referring it to .Nfr. McLane, I remarked to General Cass 
that I had not been able to see Mr. McLane, and that as he (General Cass) would proba- 
bly be a party in the ]>roposed investigation, and would see Mr. McLane, I preferred hand- 
ing the letter to him in i)ers(jn, rather than let it pass out of my hands through a messen- 
ger to Mr. McLane. L^pon looking at the superscription, General Cass remarked that 
General Jackson had a way of endorsing every thing; adding, that there ii'ould be no ix- 
VESTir.ATioN of the statements, or words tantamount, and remarked to me, " Why sow the 
winds to reap the whirlwind T' 'l\j which I replied, that he was perhaps not aware of the 
authority by which the statements had been made out; that as to the participaliini I had 
in it, I was ready to justify myself with the authority of the President himself, and the co- 
operation of many of his friends, in whom, one or more of them, the project had originated, 
and not in myself; that I was ready to establish the facts I had stated of my own knowl- 
edge, and had no doubt others would do the same in regard to their statements, if permit- 
ted. But, upon thus learning that there would be nn investigation, I addressed a letter to 
the President, proposing to withdraw the documents, and about the same time (probabiv 
the next day) mentioned the fact to the Secretary of War, who informed me that he had 
heard of my application to withdraw them, but that the determination wa.s, that /hey should 
not be returned, stating that the course adopted was, to address a letter to Mr. De KrafTt, 
and other signers of the memorial that accompanied the list or sequel, to inform them of 
the determination taken by the President ; and he (General Cass) inquired of me, at the 



16 

same time, if I had not retained a copy. To which I replied ih&t I had not, as it was q long 
. document, and General Jackson had been impatient to have it; that I had a copy of ihe 
memorial (see Appendix C) and most of the originals, and the rough materials from which 
the sequel accompanying it had been made ; but that it would be impossible to renew the 
copy with exactness, in regard to order, matters omitted, or additional information verbally 
stated to the committee making that copy. Whereupon, he (General Cass) recommend- 
ed me, if I had any thing to urge in that regard, that I would see Major Donelson, the pri- 
vate secretary of the President, that morning, who -was )irobably then about despatching 
the letter to the memorialists. I did see Major Donelson arccordingly, and understood 
from him the purport above stated, and that, as I was not a signer of the memorial, I was 
>-0T considered as having the right to control it or to ivithdravj it. The President's letter, 
written by liis secretary in his behalf, was addressed " 'i'o E. Df.Kratft and others, 
signers of a mf.moiu.*.!. of sundry citizens of Washington, to the Puksident of tue Uni- 
ted States." (See Appendix D). On receiving it, Mr. DeKratlt immediately sent for 
me, and placed it (where it now is, ready to speak for itself) in my hands, the perusal of 
which also .shows the determination of the President to retain the memorial and seijuel for 
further consideration, and ho/ to ad on them for '■'the present." It is, therefore, nut true, 
both according to mv own distinct recollection, and General Jackson's own letter to De 
Krafl't, that he ever told me I might withdraw the document; and it is aksolutely /«/.-.e 
that I ever told him that Major Donelson had returned it to me. It is equally untrue that 
the long list of charges I presented to General Jackson originated in the manner he as- 
serts ; it is not true that a full investigation of said list was ever made ; it is not true that 
T failed, on full investigation, to establish any of those charges, there having been no inves- 
ti"-ation ; it is not true that said list was ever returned to me ; and, as I have just said, it 
is uittriij false that I ever told General Jackson that it was given up to me. 1 hope this 
la'ter statement of the deponent was not made v.ith a view to excuse himself from ever 
producing, that list hereafter; if so, the imperfect materials now in my possession, from 
which, in part, it was made out, must tell for it as well as they can at a future time; and 
in regard Vj his declaration, thai he told mc, as a leason for giving that list up to me, 
that those charges being made by me and not established luottld now, being on his public 
flies, destroy inc as a man of truth forever, no man who knows me can believe for a 
moment that such language was ever uttered to me by any one. General Jackson not ex- 
cepted, without instantly having his nose pulled, his jaws slapped, and spit in the face as 
the minimum of his punishment. But sujjpose, for an instant, that such were a true state- 
ment; then I would ask, what is to be thought of a President of the United States, who 
could afterwards confer or sanction frequent appointments on one whom he held to be thus 
infamous 1 About twelve months after the date of his letter to De Krafl't, (say in July, 
1834,) at the adjournment of Congress, he called me to him as he took his scat in his car- 
riage, (the Vice President, Mr. Van 13urcn, seated by his side — Mr. Taney, General Cass, 
and I think Mr. Forsyth, were present, just taking their carriages on leaving the capitol,) 
and'requestcd me to " come to-morrow morning'' to the mansion. And what was it for ! 
To instruct mc to call on the Secretary of State, who would give mc an appointment to fill 
the vacancy of Alexander Mclntyre, who had just been removed from the chief clerkship 
in the Patent Oifice. Also, in October, 183G, he approved of my appointment as sole 
clerk in a temporary bureau in the War Deiiartment— a bureau of great intricacy, and ex- 
tremely delicate trust, in which I olfu'iated nearly two years without ever hearing of the 
slightest dissatisfaction, until the fiilse clamor was raised that I had purloined the copy of 
General Jackson's letter to Fulton, whereupon I was removed from oHicc without ahearing — 
probably because such a hearing would put the whole conspirators to shame. But I regret 
not, ncSvv, that injustice, because 1 now have the puospect ok a .moke full and fair 

INVESTIGATION llEFOItF. :»IE. 

In fine, there can be nothing more obvious, upon a survey of this whole subject, than 
the reflection that, Ijad I the imbecility to pronounce General Jackson's action upon the 
conspiracy of Houston all .sufficiint, had I the servility to gloiufv him upon it, this cnl- 
tinmi/ of purloining wini.u yv.wn MKyr. nr.v.y Tintri-.iir iti-\ 

I hope my coun.selwill be able to find some assistance from this expose, in making their 
briefs in the cause ; and I cheerfully grant to the opposing counsel all the benefit they can 
derive from it in the defence. 

ROBERT MAYO. 

Washington City, December 23, 1839. 



APPENDIX. 



By a careful exanunation of the following documents, [A] and [C], with the respective 
actions on thoin, [13] and [D], the reader will perceive how each of the former is virtually 
falsified in the two latter, and set at naught by the President. To assist in this comparison, 
I will only here make a single general remark in relation to document [A], that no exami- 
nation of witnesses had been made, to my knowledge, to justify tlve President in saying, 
in document [B], that no facts had been established, and he was induced to believe the 
circumstances communicated to him were erroneous. And in relation to document [C], 
that its prayer did not ask for the removal of any one, as he more than insinuates in docu- 
ment [D], but submits the statements for such disposition as to his excellency might seem 
fit and proper, &c. In fine, I shall ever be of opinion that the documents [A] and [C] 
were entitled to a more efficient action ; but the reader can only appreciate the entire mer- 
its on a future perusal of the whole of the documents. 



[A.] 
[.Original letter addressed to the President in 1830, a7id returned in 1836.] 



U V 



st- / 



a h- 


cd- 


ef 


^h' 


if 


kl- 


m n- 


op- 


q r- 




"' To General Andrew Jackson, President of the United States: 

" The eiicloseil is ihe scheme of a Secret Alphabet, in the haml-wriling of a IMr. Hunter, which came inln 
my pissrssion in the manner hereinafter mentioned, and which I confide to your excellency, together with 
the following siiapinent of fads, to be used in any way your excellency may deem proper. Written out, the 
Alphabet stands thus : 

[In the orieinal letter, the thirteen coniiwrtments of the above diairram are separated into their elements, 
consisting of two letters eat h, distinguished by a dot ; thai is, <i and b are the same, except that 6 has a dot ; 
and .so on with tlie rest, giving the entire alphabet.] 

" In making the following statement, it seems to me desirable, with a view to brevity, without impairin" 
or obscuring the facts, to avoid that circumlocution which a minute detail of contingent and immaterial cir"- 
ciimstancea would involve. 

" Some lime in the month of February last, as nearly as I can recollect— certainly very shortly after Gen- 
eral Samuel Houston arrived in this city— I was introduced lo him at Brown's hotel, where Imih of us had 
laken lodgings Our rooms were on the same flcxir, and convenient for social intercourse ; which, from the 
general's courteous manners, ami my own desire to be enabled to do him justice in my own estimation, rel. 
alive to his abandoning his family and abdicating the Government of Tennessee, readily became frequent 
and intimate. Upon what ho perhajs deemed a suitalde maliirity of acquaintance, he spoke freely and mi- 
nutely of his p.Tsi hi.story. Ho spoke of his separation from i\Irs. H. with great sensibility, and deprecated 
the injurious impression il had made uix)n a considerable portion of the public mind, disparasing the sanili/ 
I f his intellect, or rectitude of his moral character. Judging favorably, no doubt, of the nro^ress of our 
acquaintance, and the prepossessing impression ii had made on me in relation to the salubrity and general 
competency of his intelligence, with rectitude of impulses, he complained of the inadequate defence vol- 
unteered in his behalf liy ihe editor of the Richmond Entiuirer, and solicited me to write communications 
for the coUnnns of that paper, and use my friendly interest with the editor for their publication. I promised 
lo make a sketch of something anonymous respecting my favorable impressions, and show it to lijni. But, 
befire I had time or full pliancy of mind lo ditrost any ttioui-'hts upon the subject, our frpqiienl interviews, 
and his confidence in my serving his ends, doubtless, induced him lo avow to me more particularly Ut« 
ground of his solicitude to have his character and mental competency elevated before the ]>ublic. He des- 
canted on the immense field for enterprise in the Indian settlement bfyond the Mississippi, and through 
that, as a stepping-stone, in Texas; ann recommended me to direct my destinies that way. Without making 
anv promises or commitments, I did not discourage, at this sta^e, his mflaied schemes for my advancement'', 
as X had a curiosity, now on tip-toe, lo hear hisroinaniic prujeciions: for his manner and his enthusia-.m were, 
at least, entertaining. Accordinsly, he went on to dpvehip much of a systematic enterprise, but not half 
what I have since learnt from another source ; perhaps because he discovered that my interest in the subject 
did not keep pace wiih the anticipations he had formed fi>r the progress of his disclosures. I learnt from him 
these facts and speculations, viz : 

" That he was orcanizing an ex|>edition against Texas : to afford a cloak to which, he had assumed the In- 
dian costume, habits, and ajssociations, by settling amons them, in the neisrhborhood of Texas. Thai nothing 
was more easy to accomplish than the conquest and pos-<p«sion of thai extensive and fertile country, by the 



IS 

Ci-operali'jii of ihp InJiaiis in ilie Arkansas Tprrilory, and rpciiiils among the citizens of the Unileil Slates. 
That ill his view it wouUl hurilly tw nectssary to strike a blow to wrest Texas from Mexico. That it was 
ample for lite establislirnenl ami inainieiiance of a separate and independent governiiirnt from the United 
.States. That the expedition would be got ready with all possible despatch— that the demonstration would 
an.l 7nusl be made in about twelve months fron) that time- That the event of success opened the most iin- 
bjunded prospects of weallli to tli ise whi would eniba.k in it ; and that it was with a view to facilitate his 
recruits, he wished to elevate himself in the pul..lic confidence by the aid of my ronmiunicationsioihe Rich- 
mond Enquirer. That I should have a surgeoncy in the expedition, and recommended me in the mean lime 
10 remove along with him, and practise physic among the Indians in the Territory. 

•' As the matter began to a.ssume tlie shape of a close and suUtaniial proposition. I felt myself under the 
necessity to be decisive, which put an end 10 the further detail of his jdans. I declined the overtures for niy 
participation ; and farther told him, by way <>t exonerating myself from the promise to make communications 
to the knquirer, without excitins his apprehensions of my artire hostility to his views, tlial it would be very 
iynpolilic to attract ihe public attention towards himself in that general and indiscriminate manner ; that it 
would surely invite incpiirv from .some ([uaiteralxnittlie motives of such communications, which would prob- 
ably issue in ferreting out 'his wholescheme. Aflcrthis, our interviews fell into neL'lect— our intercuurse con- 
sisted only of salutations of civility— he sought not my company, and, as a matter of prudence, 1 rather avoid- 
ed his. 

" In the parly part of mir i.itrrconrse, General Houston informed me that he had volunteered to assure the 
President that he had no desire for an appoinlioent of any son under his administration; that he Ijelieved 
the President woulil L.'ive him almost any tiling he would request: but that he took into consideration the 
pn-jiidice with which an anp linlment conferred on him ini!;ht be regarded by the public, subsisting the cir- 
iiimslances and causes of his exile. Yet, 1 have understood from indisputable authority that General Hous- 
ton dill apply for and solicit the appointment to fumisli provisions, &,c., for the Indians, itc, at the charge of 
the United States, in that quarter; w'uich was denied him. But, whether that wish has not been, as to his 
views, sufliciently siibslituteil In' the successful application of a most intimate friend of his, (General Van 
ForSHii, latelv of New V'urk.) is a problem perhaps not unworlhv of in(|uiiy. In the month of March, Genera! 
Houston vi.siied Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, and did intend to have gune .is far as B(.ston, as he 
informed me, under such circiimst.inces as made the inference of his ijusiness a matter hardly to be doubled. 
" .Some time in the month of June, shortly after the adjournment of Congress, (or possibly in May, a short 
time lipfore adjoiirnment.i having returned 'to Kichmond, 1 met with a young gentleman in that place by the 
nameof Murray, from Tennessre, ,m his return home thioii'di ihe soutiiern States. 1 had become acquainted 
with him, in tliis citv, early in the winter. He had also told me that he wanted no employment from the Gov- 
ernment, but w.is ir'ivelling r.itlier for his [lersonal aratifiralion. A considerable portion of the winter he had 
passed in a town to the north. When 1 called on him in Kichmond, 1 made an obliqueturn of conversation, 
upon the mysterious conduct of General Houston ; and expressed a surmise that he must have some \ny 
deep views in exiling himself from the civilized world, to settle among the Indians. This, Mr. IVIurray 
readily confirmed, apparently, as if he thouj/ht it a peiftcllv innocent and legitimate matter, or as a thing of 
common rumor, and of no concern to him- by remarking that the general was organizing an expedition to 
lake possession of Texas. I'lion my askiie,' him how he knew"///</^ he replied, ' that it was a good deal 
spuken of at Washington.' I did not prt ss the subjeci sufliciently to satisfy my mind whether it was by com- 
mon rumor, or among recruits only, that Mr. iMiirniy meant it was spoken of, as .Mr. M"s movements indi- 
cated to nie some agency in the business ; and too much curiosity on my pari, after having declined co-oper- 
ati.m, with which he might already be,ur mi!:ht become acqiiaimed, woiild possibly excite alarm, and induce 
the parties l» lemoilcl ihCir plan with ereater secrecy and security. 

" Shortly after my return to this city, a few weeks affo, a Mr. Hunter, lately dismissed from West Point, 
came to lake liuU'iii'js in llio Iiousp where I boarded. He presently discovered'himself to be ver)- indiscreet, 
and lioastful of liiiuself, wluilipr in relation to advantaees real or imaginary On a visit to my apartment, 
being in yiecuniary embairassmpnis. aiul unalile to redeem his baggaee from the house he la.st boarded at, he 
fell to boasting of ihe funds he uas daily expecting by the mail, of his father's present riches, and still greater 
wealth before his mislortiines. and of his own pcissess'ions, independent of his father, whereof he had already 
spent five thousand d.lkirs in fnjoyiiiL' life. But, s.iys he. all that is nothing to the unbounded prospects I 
have of wealth in the biluiv. Indeed ! siid I, how is it that vou ran engender wealth to r. pair your extrava- 
i'ance with .such facility > Ah, savs he, that is a secret. I will lay my Ufe, said I, it is a scheme upon Texas. 
He, hesitatingly, said yes, sometliins like it. And, said I, General Houston is the projector and conductor of 
iheenter|irise. At this he was so impres.sed with the conviction that 1 knew all about the plan, and was one 
of the recruits, that he derlari'd it to he his belief, and asked me some (luestions to that effect. 1 declined an- 
swering, reniarkinc that f did not believe he knew any thine about it, and should tell him nothing. Upon 
this issue, to vindicate his knowledge and alleced fralernitv, he set in to tell me every ihini:. 

"Says he, there is your name, (wfiliiu' mv name on the table in cipher, where It yet stands unobliterated.) 
I was still incredulous. Ho asked for pen, 'ink, and paper, and wrote the schriiie here enclosed, and then 
wrote iiiv name at the bottom. 

'• That he was a bona tide aeent of the recruitins service for this District ; and thnl there were agencies es 
lablished in all the principal towns, and various parts of the United States; and llial this conventional alpha 
bel was the channel of correspondence. Thai several thousands had already enlisted along the sea board, 
from New Enirlaml to Genrci.i, inclusive. That each man paid thirty dollars lo the common fund, and look 
an oath of .secrecy and scmd faith to ihe cause, on joinins the pariy. That they were to repair, in their indi- 
vidual capacities,' as travidlers, to different points on the banks of Ihe iMississippi, where lliey had already 
chartered .sleamlioats, on which lo embark, and thence jdy to their rendezvous, somewhere in the Territory 
of Arkansas, or Texas, convenient for action, (Ihe plan not specified lo me.) That it was contemplated to 
supersede General Hoiisi.ni in tlu' civil L'overnmeni, when Ihe militaiy operations were over; and that ihey 
meant to establish an independent Government, and resist any attempt of the United Slates to wrest so val 
uable a prize from iliem. 

" He finally appealed to me again, with some concern, to say if 1 were not one of the party. I oKserved, that 
I should tell liim nothing about ii ; and changed the subject to some levity, and afterwards avoided his further 
importunities, <Scc. 

" I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

' ' "R. MAYO 



" Washington City. D. C, Dtcember 2, 18.30." 

{"Strictly confidential .) 



[B.] 



' Washington, December 10, 1S30. 

"Dear Sir : It lias been stated to nie that an extensive expedition against Texas is organizing in the Ui.i 
ted Slates, with u view tothe establishment of an independent Government in that province, and that Gen- 



19 

eral Houston is lo lie at llie h'>iiil uf il. l'"ioin all llie ciiLUiiiJtaiices coiiiinuitiratcd lo ini mi •!! iliis sulijccl, 
and which have fallen tutdti my observation, I am iiulucpil lo liPiiPve and hipp (iiolwillislaiiding ihe cir- 
cumstantial maiinpr in which it is rPlatPd to me) that the information I liavp rpi.pivpd lo erroneous, and it is 
unnect'ssary ttiat I should add »i'/ sincere icis/i that it may Iip so. A'o moremrnls hitrr been nuuie, nor have 
any fads been established, which would rpqiiiro or uniild Justify Ihe adopt ion of official piocecdings 
against individuals implicated ; ycl so strong is the ilclcstalion of the criminal sicjis alluded to, and such 
are my apprehensions of the extent to u-hich \.\\c peace ajid honor of the country mi;;hl lie compromitttd by 
it, as 10 make me anxious to do every thing sliurl uf it which may serve lo elicit the truth, and to furnish me 
with the necessary fads (if they exist) to liy \\w foundation of further mcasur,s. 

" It is said that inlistmenis have lieen made for llie eiilpnirise in various parts of llie Uni<ja,; that tlit con- 
federates are to repair, a.s- travellers, lo dilTcreiil |ioiiils of the .Ws6i'i»/;)yi/, where ihey have, already char- 
tered steamboUs in which In eiiiliark ; that llie piinl of rciulc.vous is to lie iii the Arkansas Tcrrilory ; and 
that the CO operation of the Indians is lnoked ici by those eiiga^'i d in the conteinplatnt expedition. 

" I know of no one whose situalion will biiler enable him To watch the course of things, and keep me truly 
and constantly advised of any movements which may serve lo justify the suspicions which cue entertained, 
than yiiursell ; and I know I can rely with contidencp on your Infelity and activity. To secure your exer- 
tions in that regard, is the object of this letter; and it is because I wish il lo bp considered rather as a private 
than an official ac/,thal il is addressed lo you instead of the Governor, (ip/io is re/it/crs/oorf /o 6e «oio i/i 
Kentucky.) 

■•The course to be |)ursued to effect the object iii view must of necessity lie left lo your discretion, chjoih///^ 
only thai the utmost secrecy be observed on yo.i.r jiirt. If, in the performance of ihe duty required of you, 
any expenses are necessarily incurred by you, I will see they are refunded. 
" I am, respectlullv, yours, 

"ANDREW JACKSON 

" W.M. l-'uLTON, Esq." 

[C] 

• The ni&inorial of sundry citizens of VVaihing'on, lo his Excellency A^dkuw J.vckson, President of the 

United States, Ukeeting : 

•• Your memorialists respectfully beg leave lo aiijiroach your K.xcellency with the most grat.eful sensibili- 
ties for the benefits which have accrued, and are daily maluriiiL', ihrotiili the insirumentalily of your aus- 
picious adiiiiuisiralioti, in advancing the prosperity of our common couniry, liy the hapjiy adjuslme'nl of our 
foreisn relations, and the conciliatory propitiation of our inlernal disconleius. 

" But your memorialists are nit unaware of the humiliating trulh, that, while the details uf iheae mometl- 
tous concerns have continually received Ihe most pr impl consideration and efficient action because they 
are under the more immediate recognition and conlrol of your Excellency, they constitute but a comparatively 
remote object of concern with the citizens of Washinstoii, and affect them only in their small participations 
with the all-aljsorbing commercial and iiiaiiulitclurinc interests of the Union at large. Whereas, ilie details 
of the ollicial res|xiirsibilily and iniral ileporluieiit in the minor otlicers of the Government, located here, 
while they more closely atTecl the interests and character of the citizens cif Washinslon, Ihey a- p of vastly 
inferior executive consideration, and are loo remote from your pers.mal supervisorship for any delinquency 
therein to reach your knowledge for correction, excejil by the volunteer information of llKise directly cogni- 
zanl of the facts and most deeply interested in their reformation. 

"That the ciiizens of Washington may have a more minute knowledge of ofRcial abuses and moral de- 
pravity at the seat of government, and feel a deeper inlerest in their correction, than any other porlionof the 
Union, your meiiKirialists presume to believe your K.xcellency will yield a ready assent. Your meinorialisls 
also entertain the belief thai the national character, both at home and abroad, is nece.ssarily assiniilaled to. 
and tinctured l>y, that of the I\Ielro|H)lis ; while the character of its citizens must be still more immediately 
identified with ihe ollicial integrity and moral deportment of the officers of Governmonl residing among Iheni. 
formina as they do so great a prupunion of its lemjiorary inhaliilanls. 

" Furthermore, your memorialists cannot suppress the heart-rending conviction that the rapid growth and 
luirture of fraud, alone, at the seal of government, evincing in many instances the most awful want of integ 
nly an<l obduracy of conscience in the servants of the people, lends more lo alienate their afiVctions from 
the sacred union of the Slates, than all the local and seciional incoiigniiiies taken in a mass. Nay,yiiur ine- 
niorialists may add. that the audacity of defaultei-s within a few years, and of recent dale, together with a tre- 
quenl repetition of minor improp-ieties of daily notoriety, bear a striking analogy lo the nft-repeated and 
(uring infractions of law and decorum in the dense population of large towns, wli'-re the calculation seems lo 
be, that the deliiK|uenl will be lost sishl of in the crowd, or, if seen, that he will be borne in countenance ly 
the depraved craiulations of an cj;/e«s(i,c/;«/erHi7y. Nor can your memorialists resist the belief lliat any 
grade of unofficerly conduct is but a miniature, in its own dcL'ree, of the most atrocious outrage, and, while re- 
garded with liio much lenity, is only nurtured in its tendency lo ihe gros-.esl results. 

" Under this aspect of a subject interesting, in a remnle degree, to the whole Union, but vital in its bear- 
imrs on the interests and character of ihe Melro|Kilis, your memorialists beg leave to submit lo the c<iiisidera- 
lion of your Excellency the accompanying slaiemeiits and specifications, vouched for by respectable names 
and references; and pray your Kxcellencv will grant such relief in ihe premises as lo your E.xcellency may 
seem riiand proper, wnelner by ;-f»no»n/of the incumbents in the more objectionable cases, and theV«/(/- 
didion of the future repetition of the mi.nor offences, or otherivise dispose of the same as may best con- 
duce to the interest of the Metro) lolis, secure the crediljility of the public service, and preserve the affection 
of ihe people for the perpetuity of the Federal Goveruiuen't ; and your meinorialisls will ever pray," &c. 

(Signed by tirenly or thirty citizens.) 

[D.] 

[The cnvcl<)j)e uf llic letter, ufiv/tic/i the folluiving it< u copy, had this iin'r/resn: '• To E. 
I)c Kniffl and others, sii^ticrs of a mcmurial of sundry citizens of W'ushiugton to the 
President of the United Stittcs.^'] 

'• Washi.ngton, May 29, 1333. 

" Gentlemk.n" : I am directed by the I'residentof the United .Stales lo slate to yiui ihp determination trhich 
he had taken u|ioii your memorial and the paper accompanying \i, previously lo the application fiiriliPir witli- 
draw.il, made yesterday by Dr. Mayo. 

" .Many of the allegations contaiupd in the pajier eiuilled " A Sequel to the .Aleiuorial," and which was de- 
livered with the memorial to the President, are not such as would warrant the removal of the individuals ac- 
cused, even if lliey should prove lo be well founded. The I'rcsideiil, moreover, has been informed, in wri- 
lins; by severalof those whose names are subscribed lo the meni' rial, that they had never seen the •'bcciuel:" 



20 

that ihey had no knowledge of the accusations therein contained ; and that they desire to disclaim all con. 
nexion whatever with it. , , t ...» 

" Under these circumstances, the President does not deem these papers of such a nature as at present to 
require or authorize his particular interference. The character of the President, however, is a sufficient 
guaranty that, whenever specific charjes of incompetence or official misconduct shall be made by your- 
selvea, or responsible individuals, aqainsl any person in office, he will promptly direct such an investigation 
as the good of the service and justice to all parties shall require. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"A. J. DO NELSON. 

" To E. Db i^AFFT and others, memorialists." 

After all that had transpired, of high advisement and approved preparation, I will leave 
the reader to judge with what profound astonishment I received a message from Mr. Ed- 
ward De Krartt, requesting me to peruse m evasive a letter! True, I had learned that there 
would he no action upon the matters stated in the sequel to the memorial, and for that rea- 
son had requested leave to withdraw them, in order to use them in obedience to any emer- 
gency ; but, as luck would have it, they were refused, and I have had the ineftable satis- 
faction to find, in justificatioii of those statements, that all the reform which has taken place 
since has fallen upon General Jackson's own delinquents, then and afterwards called to 
his notice, in the General Post Office, the Land Office, the Patent Office, &c. &c. 

The movement taken by several signers of the memorial, in disclaiming all connex- 
ion with it, on account of the charges preferred in the sequel to it, ought, perhaps, to be 
explained here, lest it should be considered a^ prima fucir condemnation of the document, 
which the explanation will show was not the fact. Let it first be observed that many of 
the signers of the memorial adhered to the prayer of the memorial that an investigation 
should be had ; and that therefore the withdrawal of others should not properly have fore- 
stalled inquiry from the President, under whose encouraging countenance and approbation 
the document had been made out and presented. Next, let it be considered that several 
of the signers of the memorial who seceded from it, had, themselves, preferred many of the 
charges embraced in the sequel ; but, upon learning that some of their own personal friends 
were also indicted by others, they, in order to save those friends from inquiry, took measures 
to nullify the document. Such, I personally know, was the cause of Mr. DeKrafiVs with- 
drawal. He was the first signer of the memorial; he made many of the charges embraced 
in the sequel ; and he was the first to withdraw to save his friend. It was a very easy mat- 
ter to get others to follow that example ; and I was afterwards emphatically told by one of 
the indicted that the failure of investigation was occasioned by the great number included 
in the bill, combining to defeat it — the memorialists being, all of them, political friends of 
the Admini.stration, as well as I recollect ; and, there being very many friends of the Ad- 
ministration included in the bill, it was easy to efiect such a compromise as would exoner- 
ate all from the scrutiny of a time-serving Administration. Nor need any one marvel at 
such a result who is at all conversant with that animal instinct by which the lion, the fox, 
and the jackal coalesce against the community of the forest; of which, it appears, we have 
had a recent illustration in another sphere of the animal creation ! 

Another Jackson Affidavit — Executive Chicaxeht — A New Coalition — 

Thkeatenki) Revolutiox. 

It is a sufficiently remarkable fact to claim a passing notice here, that, at the very mo- 
ment I am concluding this exposition of the foregoing scandalous affidavit, in which Gen- 
eral Jackssn assumes to be so wonderfully minute in his recollection of comparatively 
trivial incidents which he alleges to have taken place in 1833, Samuel L. Gouveineur, 
Esq., late postmaster of New York, is actually exposing, by a series of numbers in the 
New York Courier and Enquirer, the fal.'^ehoods of another affidavit of (ieneral Jackson, 
given in the suit of the Post Office Department against Mr. (iouvenieur — in which suit 
Mr. Gouverneur, as I understand, claimed offsets to a large amount, for loans or advances 
to the Post Office Department while it was under the management of William T. Barry, 
Esq., and proves by living witnesses and documentary evidence that those loans were made 
with the a])probation and grateful arkiiowlcdgments of the late President himself; of which, 
nevertheless, in his said atl'ulavil, be utterly denies huvinL:; aiiij ncalltctid)), and atlenipts 
to disprove fhe fads by a series of i/l/nr ulleiicd rtcollictiiiuf, which he stales with the 
same unscrupulous air of confidence and boldness as he does the matters he sets forth in 
the foregoing affidavit. I have seen two only of five numbers of Mr. Gouverneur's re- 
view of the afl'idavit in his case. IfCuiieral Jackson did consult Mr. Taney, as he says he 
did, it only proves that he could take counsel of a saint, for form's sake, while he follows the 



21 

instigation of the Fieiid of Darkiiebs. All must uward him skill, however, in providing 

conjidaii/s on the one hand, n\u\ Hup>s on the otlier, an ftifetiz-ralvm \o Ruard the duplicity 

of his acts from detection ; hut by u |)rovidential deficiency in some of those very guards, 

to use a modern technicality, he has burst his boiler after all. I take tlic following extract 

from the fourth number of Mr. G., in the Courier of the 24th December ultimo: 

" To tho third (jiiet^lion the then rrcsidptU rrplirs : ' He has no iiersoiml knowletlpp of ;iny loans nmile hy 
Ihp Poslinastcr GeiiL-riil on his nulhorily. Ho hoanl, in lioslon, llial loans from liankft had Ijccii inailp by thai 
officer or his avrnls to sustain the DeiVTrtniPnl ; but no smh loans were pvpr authuriziil by llii.-i drimnenl. 
On ihp conlrarv, he always told the Poslniaster Gpnrral ho had no authorilv to borrow money on the failli at 
the Govprnmeiit, whatever hp might do in his individual capacity ; nor did he ever dirpclly or indirectly as- 
sert the riL'ht of the Postmaster General to Uirrow money, except on his own rrsponsibilitv ; and such was the 
opinion of the Secretary, Mr. Taney, communicated by him, in my prpseiice, to the I'oslmastrr General. 
To be more explicit on this point, the view entertained by ihi.s deponent, of the power of the head of the 
Post Office Department, was, that he coidd not conunil the iiovr rnnirnl in a loan of money ; that Ihere was 
no law to authorize it ; that he must carry on the Ileparlmenl on its own IprhI means, liy its proper credit 
alone, and his own responsibility.' " 

In refutation of this statement of General^Jackson, in answer to the tliird question in be- 
half of the Post Office Department, Mr. Uouverneur shows that James A. Hamilton, Escj., 
of New York, made "a liberal offer to I\lr. Barry to lend the Department money ;" which 
ofler " was enclosed open to the then President himself;" and that " Mr. Barry's reply to 
Hamilton, received directly from the President, was produced in court." Mr. Gouveriieur 
also says, "an original letter of William 1\ Barry, dated the 8th March, 1834, is now 
before me" — from which he ([uotes these words: "Congress will sustain the President in 
his course. We shall have to rely on the aid of State banks, and the President assures me 
that the Seventh Ward Bank shall be remembered. ^^ [This was shortly after and during 
the removal of the deposites.] Remembered "for what!" says Mr. Gouverneur. "At two 
moments of the greatest pressure they had lent the Post Office Department about ^60,000." 
.Mr. Gouverneur continues: "Another original letter from William T. Barry, of the 12th 
April, 1834, is now before me. He says, ' 'J'he matter between myself and Hamilton i& 
conjidential. T have conversed with the President. He k notes all about it, and says it is 
right. ^ The letter proceeds to say, 'He (the then Pres^Wf?;/) says it is my privilege to 
borrow of whoever will lend, and obtain all the aid I can in {)assing through my difficul- 
ties.' " I >.hall make no further extracts on this affidavit of the MAX-oF-.AiFiDAvrrs ! I 
presume these are sufficient to give the reader some idea of the sort of nian I have had to 
deal with, in executing commissions to assist in compiling information for E.xecutive action, 
as I understood it, in redeeming a public pledge of salutary reform. What I did was in 
good faith, with the expectation of a general investigation of the actual condition of the 
public service in the several Departments, and that it would result in the establishmrnt of 
uniform rules of administration in each, with a strict accountability and fidelity to tht^ juib- 
lic service. But General Jackson's treachery towards me in that case, as may be .seen in 
the above letter to De Kraflt, (leaving me in the false position of a volunteer of proscrip- 
tion, which he in fact set on foot, and which I in fact arrested, by including his own favor- 
ites as well as the intended victims of proscription,) was but the beginning of the numer- 
ous other instances yet to be recited in my foithcoming book. 

Executive chicanery is at all times a difficult skein to unravel. And, besides the elu- 
sive mercurial properties of the subject itself, there arc great imiiediments thrown in the 
way of such investigations in this country, from the unsuspecting confidenco naturally be- 
stowed bv a liberal-minded people on their chosen agents, presumed to be fully worthy of 
their trust ; so that, under any circumstances, much mischief might be done by ambitioUb, 
recreant ingrates, in the way of Executive abuses and usurpation, before suspicion could 
be awakened, or ejection from office arrest its progress. And yet, viewed in a party light, 
the evil is still greater, as it has become almost the universal practice of those wlio lia\e 
contributed their votes and their personal innuonce to elect a Chief Magistrate, to grant 
him a carte blanche for wiiatever he may thir.k jiroper to do, and to cast odium and re- 
proach upon the motives of those who would dare to scrutinise the propriety of Executive con- 
duct ; whereas it would be a much safer ru'e for all patriotic citizens, after exerting their bcsf 
efforts to confer high trusts even upon the most eminent men of their own party, to keep a 
vigilant watch upon them, and hold them tn as strict accountability as if they hail b en 
among the most active opposers of their selection. In the course of the late administration, 
and so far as the present has progressed, (\\*iich is properly but a continuance of the pre- 
ceding,) this unqualified sanction of their acts by their party adherents has I'een extended 
not only to the hearty sujiport of wild innovations and lawless experiments, never thought 
of before they were installed — not only to the justification of practices that had been dis- 
claimed and denounced by them in order to insure their election — but they have been ad- 



oo 



liered lu, ami then I'riends conjured to sink or .swim with iheiii, notwithstanding tht' mul- 
tiplied infractions of the constitution and law, anil a lonteniiiiuous dcliancp of the legis- 
lative and judicial authorities, until at length we see that engulphing 7Ver6 Efat (reversing 
the order of the French revolution) virtually realized hy the consolidation of the State and 
Fcderid (iovernments into an kxecititi; absomtk, so long predicted I Of this fact, the 
recent demonstrations of Executive influence in all the Slate elections, reducing them, as 
it were, to a provincial siihserviency to the will of a despot, is one evidence ; it is also de- 
monstrated by the Executive influence more recently exerted over the organization of the 
House of Rci)rescntatives, to the exclusion of the New Jersey delegation — virtually nulli- 
fving a .sovereign State, by meaiu-. of a corrupt coalition (as goes the rumor reversing the 
direction of the thunder of nullification) with the boasted chami)ioii of the Stale-rights party, 
entered into, doubtless, for their reciprocal benefit, at the dear cost of their country — that is, 
ill order to .insure an executive party character lo the odicers and the committees of the 
House, to ward olf investigations of Executive abuses and corruption, to secure the re-elec- 
tion of the present incumbent, on the unc purl, and to enable him to indemnify hiswnmged 
antagonist on a former occasion, on the other part, by br.-.towing on him the reversion of 
the presidency hereafter, as General .lackson had done to him of the first part, when, by 
their united artifices, they succeeded in supplanting their j)iesent hireling and coadjutor, 
oj the second part. Again : the fact of virtual consolidation is demonstrated in the denun- 
ciations of the recent Executive message against yet other reserved rights of the States, in 
relation lo their corjwrate inslitulions, whose constitutionality and stability are assailed in 
still more systematic terms, in a fourth attempt to dictate to ("ongress the establishment 
of an unconstitutional mammoth federal institution as the inevitable foundation ol an o\er- 
towering national bank, that will swallow up all the State institutions ; and, to cap the cli- 
max of Executive arrogance, he urges this latter measure with redoubled audacity, by ad- 
(Ircs.sing himself lo the fc;irs of the Representatives of the pr'ople, holding up to their 
imaginations the terrors of an awful alternative, i/wf/y revolution, if a pcctcejiil revolu- 
tion cannot be wrung from their quailing hearts. For hkxoiatiox is his aim. as he so 
denominates the reform he, for the fourth time, uigcs upon Congress, lo be eflccted by 
the establishment of a paramount independent treasury, (miscalled, by design, a sub- 
tre.isury,) but truly a mammoth bank in disguise, which he connects with, and makes 
an indisjjcnsible reciprocating agent in, the destruction of all State corporations whatever. 
In line, it is still more clearly and unequivocally demonstrated, when we see, in the last 
paragra])h but one of his message, that he endorses the very counterpart expression of 
Amos Kendall, denounced injiis Hickory Club address, in 1832,* against all corporations 
as "a young nobility syslem," against which General Jackson had aimed ihe first 
blov/ of destruction — when we sec he endorses the like, but jjcrhaps more .<!weej)- 
ing denunciation, by his leader in ihe Senate, Mr. Wright, launched forth in a speech 
delivered before his democratic constituents during ihe recess, in which he declared 
thai the glorious revolution of our patriotic I'orcfatliers was not yet complete ; that we 
have yet " to rid ourselves of the auistocii ac v" of this land of liberty ! and how ! by cut- 
ting ofVlhe head, and dividing the spoils, of her principal citizens, where it was supiiosed 
that inilustry was patronised and property i)rotected ! I grant that this endorsement is 
made in Mr. Van IJuren's accustomed indirecl, ])arenthetical, and equivocal manner; but 
it is not tlio less ardently meant, and for which, if any thing, he should be held the more 



* All llip allusions nf this jurrKNDEr. nf llir Prpsiilcnl's iiie.ssage were inosl crapliically pri'lif;ured in llir< 
address of Amos Keiiilall lo ilip Hickory Club feslivnl ol'lhe odi December, 163-2." These were his fatal words : 

" TliB Unilcil Slalos liavn xhoir ;/oii)ig nnhi/ili/ .-ij/sloii. lis head i.s llie Rank ol" lli'' I'nilPd SmtP!?; ils 
riphl arm a IlrolecUn^; tariff anil luanuracuiriiig iiiuiui|ioli('S ; ils led, sroiciiis li!iUc dchls and i/lulc iiicoi- 
pnritliniin. 

'• Thn VETO of our illuslrioiis Prrsidenl, so Irinmiiliantly sustained hy the people, has lirulsrd the hkad of 
ilic rinuns serpent. Re ii o«;- duly, and thai ol'llip /)coy//e, to ishk that it never kecovkrs kro.m the 
BLOW !" XAccordingly, in Icsis than iwelve months, this soollisayer removed the dejxeiles, and .-idmlnislered 
the Burfeil to ihe other hank.-:.] 

" The inamifucluring nionouilii s arc, if ptissible, a (jkeater ccuxe I II i.s an error to SJiy Iheir evils fall 
exclusively upon the South.' Tlipy do more injunj lo ihe people of the Slates tclicrc llicy arc loculc'l tha.n 

10 ANY OTMEItS,"' &C., &.C. _ 

n would now be .superflnous to S.TV that fails upon facts Jire .-ilroncly developinc the probabilhy that wo 
iiave had a Maelzki, li suiiprinioml tliP poUti'ot rltesn-boxrd of two rresideius, who, as succp.'^siv'p autom- 
ATO.NS expo,S(>d Ui jxiblic vii'w, /((/If muilc Ihe mores iiniirnteiijrom behind the cirtai-n ! Thus has Iip. 
Iiy favor of his ensconcpd position, been the ;:rral manufacturer of public opinion, liy Ihe monopoly of which 
he has made much, and may yet for a season make more ; but will Ihe .American pe'ij^le long subiiill lo such 
a liumilialioll ' 



23 

rpsponsiblp. Grant, I say, ll>at it is only broiislu in by a side wiml, nfter a lony tirade 
ai,'ainst the abuson of all State corporations, wiiich, by changing a single torni, would be a 
better description of the Federal Executive uhusi.i that eiave existence to that immense pro- 
geny of corporations, and the relaxed morals of the guardians into whose hands they have 
been nitrusted. Let the reader peruse and ponder upon the following extract with which 
Mr. Van Buren concludes his denunciation of all corporations, as "a system of exclusive 
privileges conferred by partial legislation," and then say, if he dare, thai tlie President of the 
I'nited States has not most solemnly invoked the demon of bloody revolution against the 
institutions of the sovereign Sta'es of this confederacy, "whenever it becomes necessary" 
to accomplish that great and radical revolution, which he insists must be done, per fas 
uul nefus — peaceably if he can, forcibly if he must ! 

" To reninvi^ the iiitlucnchs wliich luul llius iiraihially t;ro\vn up among us— to deprive them of their decep- 
livp advumai^ps— to lest iheiii by the lit;hl of wisdom ,inil inilh— to oppose the force which they concentr.ile 
in tlit'ir support— all this was necessarily the work of lime, even anions a people So enliehlened and pure as 
that of the United States. In most oUic'r'coimlries,perha(i3, ilcoiiUl only be accomplished through thai series 
of revolutionary movenienlH, wliich are inu often loimd necessary to etreci any preal and radical reform ; but 
it is the crowniiin merit of oiw iiistitntions, llial lliev create and novnish, in the vast maiorily of our people, 
a disixisition and a |i<nver peaceably to remedy abuses which have elsewhere caused the etlusion of rivers 
of ulood. and the s:icrifice of thousands of the hiiiuan race. The restdt thusfar is most honorable to ihc self 
ilttiial, the inlelliirence, and the patriotism of ourcitizens ; it jasiitiesthe confident hopelhat they will carry 
Ihroush the reform which has been 3»i well i,eBun, and thai ihcy will so still farther than they have yet 
eone Tn iUiistratiniC the im(Knrtant truth, that a i.eopie as free and enlightened as ours will, whenerer it be 
comes necessan/, show themselves to be indeed capable of self-government, by voluntarily adoptini; appro 
priate remedies (or every abuse, and subnultint; to temporari/ sacrifires, hov/f.vek ckkat, to insure their 
permanent welfare." 

Was the President more explicit than this, when he claimed, infUrectly and parent In t- 
ically, to be a constituent part of the legislative power ! That he did so, by such indirec- 
tion, all must agree, was to let it pass unobserved, and be sanctioned by silence, without 
raising a ((uestion upon it ; and just so with this treasonable invocation of the spirit of 

BLOODT RKVOLfTlOX ! 

Oh! V AS, thou caitiff ' Oh! Catilint, ///r)!< wonsE //;«« caitiff.' Ah! A>ios, dost 
thou ".HOULn and touch" THE.VI too ' 

R. M. 
Washinotsx City, D. C, January IJ, 1840. 



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